As someone who has done some of the most extreme/risky forms of travel hacking (serious FD's with 1X + sX for those familiar with lingo), Matrix lost a huge amount of its value when it disallowed searches that start from multiple countries. It's tedious to have to break up a search. Of course, this is not necessarily what they intended it for, so I can't really complain too much.
And covid uncertainty these days has made proper flight hacking a bit of a pastime.
Can I ask where is good to trade info and stories about this stuff? I have been on FT for a long time, but never came across this level of fare exploration. The extent of my enthusiasm is years ago jumping on things like the Icelandair or BA WT fare mistakes. Never actually searching / generating fare loopholes.
Maybe I'm reading the wrong forums. Even just to hear about it interests me (to know what I'm missing out on)...
Unfortunately people guard this stuff closely for fear of airlines catching on, or at least they used to. I haven’t looked at it seriously in a couple of years but airlines were making a real effort to tighten up fare rules to cut down on this. Even when I was doing it a lot, all of the easy stuff was already mostly fixed, save for the odd mistake here or there.
I for instance would never post the hacks I’ve discovered, and would only share them with a select few. It’s self preservation, but once they’re known, travel bloggers spread them and every Karen ends up doing it.
And covid uncertainty these days has made proper flight hacking a bit of a pastime.