Last edited by a moderator:
AmSnag Oddity/Status
- Thread starter niemi24s
- Start date
Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:
justinslot
Service Attendant
- Joined
- May 25, 2014
- Messages
- 169
Just logged in here to see if this had been noticed yet, and it has.
Curious if there is that much of a price difference between days in the COVID era...I just tried a weeks worth of ORL->PHL and PHL->ORL and they were all the same price, both directions.
Curious if there is that much of a price difference between days in the COVID era...I just tried a weeks worth of ORL->PHL and PHL->ORL and they were all the same price, both directions.
I hope the owner of Amsnag is ok and that the message on the site is not an ominous sign that he is not ok.
The owner of Amsnag is fine. He's working through some technical difficulties right now.
jb
jb
Good to hear - that he's fine, not that he's having technical difficulties.
PaulM
Engineer
I was about to jump in; but you beat me to it. Whether I find a solution is questionable at this time.
We always appreciate what you do for us on AU Paul !
piedpiper
Train Attendant
Has Amsnag been kicked off of MacOS?? I keep geeting URL not found
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2010
- Messages
- 4,893
Apple has no control of what sites one visits when using a browser on any of their devices. No site can be "kicked off" MacOS.
Read post #32 above
acelafan
Conductor
I looked into this, too, and it's a challenge. I made some coding progress but it wasn't really clear it would work reliably so I had to put it down for now. The Amtrak website essentially does a very effective job of blocking automated queries.
I've a hunch Amtrak is hurting itself by making it so hard to shop for low fares. Southwest Airlines sort of has its own AmSnag built in and it only takes about six seconds and two clicks to find the lowest fare for the next day:
And half of that time is taken up by switching the Sort By from Departure Time over to Price. But if one could maintain that pace of 6 seconds/day, it would take 3 minutes to scour the Southwest site for 30 days worth of fares.
While this is certainly not as convenient nor as fast as AmSnag was, methinks it's a lot faster than plodding through 30 searches using Arrow. It takes me about 15 seconds to find the next days fares using Arrow and a few more seconds to see the prices for the other sleepers not initially displayed for a total of maybe 9 minutes to find 30 days worth of fares.
I wonder how badly Southwest business is hurt by making it so easy to search for low fares?
And half of that time is taken up by switching the Sort By from Departure Time over to Price. But if one could maintain that pace of 6 seconds/day, it would take 3 minutes to scour the Southwest site for 30 days worth of fares.
While this is certainly not as convenient nor as fast as AmSnag was, methinks it's a lot faster than plodding through 30 searches using Arrow. It takes me about 15 seconds to find the next days fares using Arrow and a few more seconds to see the prices for the other sleepers not initially displayed for a total of maybe 9 minutes to find 30 days worth of fares.
I wonder how badly Southwest business is hurt by making it so easy to search for low fares?
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2010
- Messages
- 4,893
No harder than, say, Marriott, for its hotels where you can not only select a discount (e.g. AAA, Senior) but show all the days of any month in a few seconds for any hotel.I wonder how badly Southwest business is hurt by making it so easy to search for low fares?
If you have been around a while and traveled by air - the gem was the OFFICIAL AIRLINE GUIDE (OAG) a telephone directory size volume
with every possible connection AND FARE between two north american points. Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear the
method today is computer mayhem to the "Nth" degree trying to replicate the same !
with every possible connection AND FARE between two north american points. Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear the
method today is computer mayhem to the "Nth" degree trying to replicate the same !
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2019
- Messages
- 109
Any updates on the status of AmSnag.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Some of us have pitched in to help Paul with this - to no avail.
jb
jb
fixj
Service Attendant
Is there any hope that Amsnag will return someday. It was such a great tool and I really miss it.
Tried using Amsnag today and the links that I had on Amsnag 2.0 were dead. Anyone have success using it?
It went "down" when the schedules were change to tri-weekly.
Read post #32 above
Read post #32 above
Thank you. I do not go on this site daily but I now understand the issue. Amnag really helped many plan trips and its unfortunate that such a valuable resource is missing.
RickIronton
Train Attendant
- Joined
- May 2, 2013
- Messages
- 92
What a shame.
Here's hoping Amsnag can adjust the algorithm and, again, offer this valuable service.
Here's hoping Amsnag can adjust the algorithm and, again, offer this valuable service.
acelafan
Conductor
Hello, it's not the algorithm. Amtrak makes it very difficult to scrape their website using automated software. We have tried multiple ways of extracting the fare info in a reliable and consistent manner, which has not worked despite many hours of trying. Maybe someone should write Congress and ask Amtrak to implement a calendar view of various fares by date?
