Copyed from boarding Area
"Apparently this whole SMS thing is a pretty popular
technology these days. Seems that it would be useful to
have the various tools available from the Wandering
Aramean Travel Tools site able to understand and interact
with SMS messages, so they now can do precisely that.
There are two main areas where the SMS interaction is
available today: Search and Alerts.
Search
Wondering what the next flight out is between a city pair? Or
if there are seats available on it? Timetable and Inventory
searches are now available. After configuring your account
for SMS you can send a message to 678-619-2637
(678-61WANDR) and it will explain the query syntax to you
for these two functions. As you can see in the screenshots
below, it is a pretty simple syntax overall. It will reply back
with up to 5 SMS messages containing the response to your
inquiry.
Additional search functionality is on the horizon; if there are
any particular functions that you want to see in the tool let
me know either via email or in the comments here.
Alerts
There are two main areas where the Travel Tools Alerts
have been most useful recently, both focusing on flight
inventory. If you want to receive those notifications via SMS
not you can do that.
For the Star Alliance award search alerts the full details of
the award aren’t included in the SMS; there is simply too
much information there to try to consolidate it in to 155
characters. Instead the alert includes a link to the search
results (in a mobile-friendly UI) so you can quickly see what
the award results are.
For the Flight Inventory Alert (searches for a specified fare
bucket on a single flight) option the alert actually includes
the specific flight and inventory details so there is more
information to act on directly there.
Like most things in life, there is a catch to this great new
functionality: you have to be a First Class member to get
access to it. I would love to make this freely available to
everyone but the SMS gateway system actually has costs
associated with it and I have to cover those costs or none of
this will exist. That said, if anyone wants a 15-day free trial
just let me know and I’m sure I can make that happen."
