Seats.aero - a useful tool for finding Qantas & Velocity reward availability

[BriarFlyer]

With Explore, have you expanded to include the whole year? The PRO version?

 

[Bryce]

With Explore, have you expanded to include the whole year? The PRO version?

LOL, I just noticed I had put POR instead of PRO. Yes

 

[SeatsIan]

Fellow posters may have by now realised that I am a bit of cynic ....
I am a bit suspicious that organizations like Seats.aero and maybe EF may be using individual frequent flier numbers (with or without the permission / knowledge of their owners) to scrape airline reward availability .
If this is the case , I hope the account owners will not be dragged into the litigation or punished by the airlines.
Just thinking ....

Hi all, I am the founder of Seats.aero. I just wanted to provide some context here and clarify that the Qantas and Air Canada websites allow anyone to search for award seats without logging in. We never log into these websites at all, much less with stolen credentials. I’m not aware of any award search tool doing that, but we certainly do not. Hope this helps clarify how our site works.

 

[levelnine]

I just wanted to provide some context here and clarify that the Qantas and Air Canada websites allow anyone to search for award seats without logging in.

My guess is that's about to come to an abrupt end.

Not a criticism directed to you or seats.aero (it's a fantastic tool), but just a reflection of Mark Nasr's displeasure with scraping tools and the steps we've seen from Air Canada to bring them to an end.

 

[ozflier]

Hi all, I am the founder of Seats.aero. I just wanted to provide some context here and clarify that the Qantas and Air Canada websites allow anyone to search for award seats without logging in. We never log into these websites at all, much less with stolen credentials. I’m not aware of any award search tool doing that, but we certainly do not. Hope this helps clarify how our site works.

Thank you for that clarification and apologies for any adverse inference.
And thank you for getting back to us.
I am impressed at how easy your site is to use compared to similar offerings but...
I do still find Oneworld airlines searches on your site useful but request you setup your "alert" function so that non Americans, who do not have USA airline miles to use, can set Alerts for specific award classes eg "E" for Alaskan Airlines ( partner airline award business class).
This would be very useful for me and no doubt other international users as now, a search for say Alaskan flight awards SEA to ANC comes back with a whole list of award fare bases which can be used for US airline miles but not by users who are using say BA Avios or Qantas points who are only able to access.
If I search individual dates , then I can potentially find "E" class seats available on those days but i cannot set an alert for a future date or dates for when "E" class seats become available.
Just to clarify , it would be a great improvement to be able to set a award seat alert for , as in the above example , "e" class award seats.

 

[SeatsIan]

Thank you for that clarification and apologies for any adverse inference.
And thank you for getting back to us.
I am impressed at how easy your site is to use compared to similar offerings but...
I do still find Oneworld airlines searches on your site useful but request you setup your "alert" function so that non Americans, who do not have USA airline miles to use, can set Alerts for specific award classes eg "E" for Alaskan Airlines ( partner airline award business class).
This would be very useful for me and no doubt other international users as now, a search for say Alaskan flight awards SEA to ANC comes back with a whole list of award fare bases which can be used for US airline miles but not by users who are using say BA Avios or Qantas points who are only able to access.
If I search individual dates , then I can potentially find "E" class seats available on those days but i cannot set an alert for a future date or dates for when "E" class seats become available.
Just to clarify , it would be a great improvement to be able to set a award seat alert for , as in the above example , "e" class award seats.

We do hope to add more alert filters in the future to support cases like this. For now, you can create alerts on Seats.aero for a specific partner program to get a similar result (i.e. create an alert on Qantas Frequent Flyer for Alaska). This way, the alert will only be triggered if a seat is seen as available via Qantas, so it will be bookable via partners.

If we're missing any Alaska routes via QFF, feel free to submit them on the Routes page for QFF.

 

[PeterG]

Hi all, I am the founder of Seats.aero. I just wanted to provide some context here and clarify that the Qantas and Air Canada websites allow anyone to search for award seats without logging in. We never log into these websites at all, much less with stolen credentials. I’m not aware of any award search tool doing that, but we certainly do not. Hope this helps clarify how our site works.

Hi Ian,
Thanks for such a great site. I know there are quite a few of us Aussies who love it.Keep up the great work.

 

[Bryce]

Hi all, I am the founder of Seats.aero. I just wanted to provide some context here and clarify that the Qantas and Air Canada websites allow anyone to search for award seats without logging in. We never log into these websites at all, much less with stolen credentials. I’m not aware of any award search tool doing that, but we certainly do not. Hope this helps clarify how our site works.

I honestly can't see a problem with this type of service or why an airline would be upset with any service promoting their offering. After all, they make the seats available, do they not want them to be filled...
I have also found the site useful, all be it with a few glitches

 

[levelnine]

I honestly can't see a problem with this type of service or why an airline would be upset with any service promoting their offering. After all, they make the seats available, do they not want them to be filled...

Airlines don't want you redeeming your points for high value redemptions (eg business/first class flights, especially on partner airlines). They want your points to expire (breakage) or to be used on low value redemptions (eg toasters/economy flights).

 

[Bryce]

Airlines don't want you redeeming your points for high value redemptions (eg business/first class flights, especially on partner airlines). They want your points to expire (breakage) or to be used on low value redemptions (eg toasters/economy flights).

I realise that's their preference, however reward seats are visible anyway and reasonably broadly known.

 

[levelnine]

I realise that's their preference, however reward seats are visible anyway and reasonably broadly known.

It's not hard to see why airlines hate scraping tools:
1. You are using a website other than their own to search (eg you might give up trying to find a points seat on qantas.com & decide to purchase a cash seat instead).
2. You can compare prices (eg you can see the same Qantas flight for cheaper using an alternative currency, suggesting Qantas points are less valuable than you initially thought).
3. It increases load on their servers (ie the scraper is repeatedly and constantly searching the entire calendar; that's well beyond the capability of any regular person).
4. It increases the ease of fraud (eg points brokers can more easily trawl for availability, scoop it up and onsell it).

 

[burmans]

It's not hard to see why airlines hate scraping tools:
1. You are using a website other than their own to search (eg you might give up trying to find a points seat on qantas.com & decide to purchase a cash seat instead).
2. You can compare prices (eg you can see the same Qantas flight for cheaper using an alternative currency, suggesting Qantas points are less valuable than you initially thought).
3. It increases load on their servers (ie the scraper is repeatedly and constantly searching the entire calendar; that's well beyond the capability of any regular person).
4. It increases the ease of fraud (eg points brokers can more easily trawl for availability, scoop it up and onsell it).

Of course not liking is one thing, actually stopping them another.

 

[levelnine]

Of course not liking is one thing, actually stopping them another.

I've already explained in this thread how an airline can stop them.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF @SeatsIan . Great search tool, and I appreciated your direct customer assistance, too.

 

[ozflier]

Welcome to AFF @SeatsIan . Great search tool, and I appreciated your direct customer assistance, too.

I agree. Now that I understand the seats.aero functions and capacities , the more I am impressed with it.

 

[burmans]

I've already explained in this thread how an airline can stop them.

By banning IP addresses? Not hard to see ways around that particular issue!

 

[levelnine]

By banning IP addresses? Not hard to see ways around that particular issue!

There's a reason none of these scraping tools can access Cathay Pacific availability, for example ...

 

[levelnine]

As I predicted, airlines really do not like these tools. Air Canada is now suing seats.aero to shut it down. This post from their Discord server:

Unfortunately, we have learned that Air Canada filed a lawsuit against us today in the US District Court for Delaware to try and shut down Seats.aero’s support for Air Canada. We attempted to work with Air Canada several times, including offering to change how our scraping worked, but they refused to work with us and filed this lawsuit without any further notice. This is a hostile move against all award travel tools.

Air Canada is alleging that we are retrieving availability too quickly for Star Alliance to handle, but we retrieve availability from other Star Alliance airlines at the same rate, and they appear to have no IT issues coming from it and have never complained to us. We have built our systems to protect the airlines from excessive load, as we search Air Canada for availability at a fixed rate and have controls in place to rate limit all requests sent to Air Canada's systems. When our users view Aeroplan results on Seats.aero, they no longer have to go run the same search on Aeroplan's site, saving them resources.

Air Canada is alleging our searches caused them issues but do not acknowledge other points search sites and malicious third-parties that are known to scrape Air Canada as well, and they don't attempt to distinguish our searches from them at all. The complaint doesn't quantify our searches compared to anyone else. Additionally, Air Canada tries to paint us as malicious hackers despite us having previously worked with them to resolve cybersecurity issues in their own systems.

We are disappointed in this outcome but we are determined to fight this unfair attempt to shut down Seats.aero’s support for Air Canada. If you are a Seats.aero user but not a Pro user, we encourage becoming one if you can to help us fight this lawsuit, which will take a lot of resources for our small company. Thanks for your support during this time.

 

[fuzzydunlop]

@Pro users, has anyone booked Europe J award (2pax) from CDG/FCO/ATH to Australia? Do you’ll search each segment (Europe to Asia then Asia to Oceania) or you can find it direct Europe to Oceania.
If it’s possible, I might subscribe to Pro then for Sept/Oct bookings next year.

 

[FishFood]

@Pro users, has anyone booked Europe J award (2pax) from CDG/FCO/ATH to Australia? Do you’ll search each segment (Europe to Asia then Asia to Oceania) or you can find it direct Europe to Oceania.
If it’s possible, I might subscribe to Pro then for Sept/Oct bookings next year.

From what I understand, you have to search each segment individually if there are no direct flights on that route