Oct 30, 2013, 3:36 pm

FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides

Last edit by: Ocn Vw 1K

UA Insider's reply in posts 247 and 254 of this thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by UA Insider

Hi everyone,

We recognize the importance and value to you of accessible and transparent information about United flights. It’s a meaningful part of your travel planning, and we are committed to providing useful information that is both accurate and preserves the integrity of United’s data and systems.

While we are committed to data transparency, Expert Flyer has been accessing united.com in an unauthorized fashion to retrieve UA availability. In addition, these activities have consumed significant united.com bandwidth that could otherwise be used by regular consumers. As a result, we had to take this action to protect the security and integrity of United’s systems.

Thank you for your understanding as to why we had to take this action. We continue to look at ways in which we can provide you with timely and useful information (some of which you will see in new releases of our own digital channels) as well as with partners that have authorized access to our data.

Aaron Goldberg
Sr. Manager - Customer Experience Planning
United Airlines

Quote:

Originally Posted by UA Insider

Expert mode/visibility in UA channels is unaffected by this.

UA Blocking Expert Flyer and KVS Access to R and Elite Award Searches.

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Dec 31, 2013, 8:34 pm

#766

eng3

Join Date: Aug 2008

Location: PHL

Programs: UA 1K 1MM, Marriott Gold, IHG Platinum, Raddison Platinum, Avis Presidents Club

Posts: 5,271

Quote:

Originally Posted by exerda

That's what really annoys me about UA blocking EF: UA stated the reason was that EF's searches were degrading the site's performance by taking up "bandwidth." Yet since blocking EF, UA's site if anything is slower than before.

I found I can do the flex month search and check the "mileage award", then click on every day and look for the "! A Mileage Upgrade Award is not available on this date. The flights below are available United Economy flights for your selected date." message in red at the top.

However, eventually or maybe if I go too fast, I'll get the advanced search form back and it won't do anything if I try to redo the search. I figure the site has some sort of anti-spam thing to prevent someone using a script to access the form.

I agree, if they are blocking EF and concerned about about bandwidth, they should allow you to directly search for R. For example, when showing the month view, if an award is not available, they should just show N/A or blank instead of a price link. Or, ofcourse, they could actually open some R inventory and not lock it up for a year.

Last edited by eng3; Dec 31, 2013 at 8:40 pm

Jan 1, 2014, 5:17 pm

#767

ozflier

Join Date: Aug 1999

Location: Australia

Posts: 2,814

Hi,

I emailed EF earlier this week in view of UA’s award blocking.Although it says nothing new , it does remind us that you can still search EF for Brussels Airlines for award seats even though it is not available thru the UA site.

Thank you for your email. ExpertFlyer is attempting to negotiate an agreement with UAL. So far, UAL has made not made any offer, or counter offer, of their own. However, we continue to discuss the matter with UAL in hopes of reaching a mutually agreeable conclusion. We would appreciate if you could send a note to United expressing your desire for the information to return to ExpertFlyer. Contact information can be found here: http://www.expertflyer.com/page.jsp?...a_changes.html

There are still several Star Alliance airlines supported for Award searching and alerting on ExpertFlyer:

Air Canada
Air China
Air New Zealand
AVIANCA
Brussels Airlines
COPA
Shenzhen Airlines
SWISS
Turkish Airlines

You'll find the full list of supported airlines here: http://www.expertflyer.com/sessionlessClassList.do

We have no ETA at this time as to when the information will be restored, however if there is a change we will be sure to inform you.

Last edited by ozflier; Jan 1, 2014 at 5:19 pm Reason: clarifying which section was from EF

Jan 1, 2014, 5:23 pm

#768

Singapore_Schwing

Join Date: Apr 2011

Location: SIN

Programs: UA 1K MM, SQ PPS, CX Silver, Accor Platinum, Marriott Gold, SPG Silver

Posts: 679

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozflier

Interesting. Does Brussels Airlines carry the full availability of UA?

Jan 1, 2014, 6:45 pm

#769

ozflier

Join Date: Aug 1999

Location: Australia

Posts: 2,814

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulyras

Interesting. Does Brussels Airlines carry the full availability of UA?

Not sure but I would guess that it may be possible going thru the SN website . I am only talking about the EF search engine.

Jan 7, 2014, 7:45 am

#770

shdflyer

Join Date: Nov 2008

Posts: 403

Best Way to Monitor Award Space now that Expert Flyer is useless?

Is there any tool available to quickly monitor award availability now that EF is out of the picture? Or is manual day-by-day viewing at united.com the only way now?

Jan 7, 2014, 8:08 am

#771

UAPremExecflyer

Suspended

Join Date: Jun 2001

Location: DCA or IAD (originally DUB)

Programs: UA 1K 1.8MM, Hertz PC, Marriott Platinum/Lifetime Gold

Posts: 7,657

Read this: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...t=expert+flyer

Jan 7, 2014, 8:55 am

#772

eng3

Join Date: Aug 2008

Location: PHL

Programs: UA 1K 1MM, Marriott Gold, IHG Platinum, Raddison Platinum, Avis Presidents Club

Posts: 5,271

The only free way I have found is to use the flex month search and check the "mileage award" box, then click on every day and look for a day that doesn't say the "! A Mileage Upgrade Award is not available on this date. The flights below are available United Economy flights for your selected date." message in red at the top. Don't click too fast or you'll get rejected back to the search page. Ironically this probably uses far greater resources on the UA site that EF.

Unfortunately, depending on the flight, you can go 6mo without finding one.

Jan 7, 2014, 9:39 am

#773

alex_b

Join Date: Jul 2010

Location: London, UK

Programs: BA Gold, UA Nobody, Hilton Gold

Posts: 2,372

The ANA tool gives you 7 day point to point searching, but I'm not sure if it sees the same saver inventory as UA.com

The problem with the flex search on UA.com is two fold. Firstly it ignores the direct flights only tick box (with all of the stupid routes that means). Much worse it will display "mixed cabin" awards as being available C/F days so a 2hr flight in F followed by 14hrs in Y shows as an available C/F award, making it utterly useless for searching for premium cabin flights.

Mar 14, 2014, 3:31 pm

#774

mi88ke

Join Date: Sep 2012

Location: East coast

Posts: 95

Why UA bothered to threat AwardTravelr?

Just saw this on its website. Sad!

To our users:

It is with regret that AwardTravelr will be temporarily shutdown. Our aim at AwardTravelr has always been to provide frequent flyers world wide with a free and better search tool - allowing them to make full use of their frequent flyer miles. However, due to recent events such as receiving a Cease & Desist letter from United, we have made the decision to discontinue the service.

Thank you for your generous donations and support over the past two years - that kept us running and gave us the ability to cope with increased traffic. Keep checking back on AwardTravelr - we will certainly be relaunching with a better tool in the future!

Mar 14, 2014, 3:34 pm

#775

SKYEG

Join Date: Feb 2012

Location: PHX

Programs: AAexp, AC75k, HertzPC, NationalEE, Accor/MariottP, Hilton/HyattG

Posts: 3,614

They have done this with everyone else as well(experflyer etc)... I dont think they should have shut down the whole service though, it was an amazing tool!