SQ website blocking award searches for accounts with zero KrisFlyer miles

[RooFlyer]

Something to prevent scraping by award seat search engines (seats.aero for example?)

 

[elanshin]

Something to prevent scraping by award seat search engines (seats.aero for example?)

I think this is the real answer here.

Bot scraping doesn't just make things easier, its also constantly hitting the servers with searches and data - effectively i would imagine a non insignificant real cost.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Something to prevent scraping by award seat search engines (seats.aero for example?)

Potentially.

But wouldn't those sites just add a few points to whatever account they’re searching from?

 

[sudoer]

Potentially.

But wouldn't those sites just add a few points to whatever account they’re searching from?

SQ may be actively shutting their accounts down - it wouldn't be hard to identify which ones are consistently searching thousands of times an hour. Without a minimum points requirement, seats.aero could create virtually unlimited accounts to use for their automated searches - but with a minimum points requirement they couldn't without a cost (potentially substantial depending on how aggressively SQ is play cat and mouse)

1000 KF miles is practically nothing in the scheme of things. If that's the cost of access to SQ searches for 36 months, so be it. In reality I will book at least one award in those 36 months and the counter will reset, so it'll actually cost me nothing.

I'd much rather this approach than limiting F awards to certain status levels like EK has done. As convenient as tools like seats.aero are, there is an argument they make points redemptions too accessible and may be a net-negative for those of us who are heavily invested in this game.

 

[madrooster]

But wouldn't those sites just add a few points to whatever account they’re searching from?

These sites don't use individual accounts to search. They pull from the JSON API exposed by the website.

 

[sudoer]

They pull from the JSON API exposed by the website.

From a quick poke around, it looks to me like the API requires authentication? How would they be authenticating if not using individual accounts? (assuming SQ doesn't want to give them a static token)

 

[Captain Halliday]

As convenient as tools like seats.aero are, there is an argument they make points redemptions too accessible and may be a net-negative for those of us who are heavily invested in this game.

Agree.

IME, searching has become considerably easier in the past 3-4 years.

However, premium cabin award availability has become much harder to find.

Correlation not causation of course, but I think it’s reasonable to conclude that the democratisation of award searches is at least a contributing factor.

 

[kamchatsky]

I have just over 400 points, and when I searched using my browser on PC, I have the dreaded message of not sufficient balance. But I have no problems searching on my SQ App on my phone.

 

[SYD]

How’s SQ when it comes to EF searches? Any free EF account now has seat, award, upgrade and flight availability searches (with constraints).

 

[Tiki]

Won't this all just backfire on them? Their call centres will be flooded by people wanting to confirm seat availability before transferring points over.

 

[serfty]

Won't this all just backfire on them? Their call centres will be flooded by people wanting to confirm seat availability before transferring points over.

Thereby reducing redemptions and increasing breakage since people may have difficulty getting through.

 

[serfty]

I note that seats.aero lists Outage for Krisflyer on its status page.

https://seats.aero/status

 

[levelnine]

It would be more acceptable for airlines to take these steps if they built half-decent award search tools themselves. Not having month/calendar views is a real indictment on SQ. A week at a time is not good enough.

 

[Tiki]

Thereby reducing redemptions and increasing breakage since people may have difficulty getting through.

People will just keep trying until they get through. And it will affect people trying to make changes, solve problems with prebooked flights and such. It would be more sensible if they unblock people with activity on their accounts that can be ruled out as award tool burner accounts.

 

[daft009]

IMO call centre will likely ask you to use the website or pay $$ for them to search

 

[elanshin]

It would be more acceptable for airlines to take these steps if they built half-decent award search tools themselves. Not having month/calendar views is a real indictment on SQ. A week at a time is not good enough.

I feel theres an incentive for airlines NOT to build a good functional award search.

 

[jbman]

I have 700 in my account and it failed today. Yesterday the search was working after I saw the news story.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Couldn't search yesterday with a zero balance. Transferred 1,000 miles, searching was restored. Today, the error is back, but with 1000 miles in my account. KrisFlyer is clearly aiming to piss people off, not just block the bots.

 

[yoyo]

I have 336 miles in my account, couldn't search so called them. They said they think it is temporary but weren't sure.

 

[Mattg]

Thereby reducing redemptions and increasing breakage since people may have difficulty getting through.

Reducing redemptions and, in the long run, reducing overall engagement in the program!