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So I went to the new high security airline and gave them my luggage, then they told me, I needed a password. Thankfully I always used the same number lock for my luggage. Alas, they said my password had to be all lowercase alphabet characters. You can count on airlines to make everything needlessly complex, and on top of that less secure. Anyways, I thought on it a while, and while there was an obvious answer, I didn't want to give these guys my number password. So I and made my password. They then offered to take a password hint and I said sure. So I left the hint

Having been victorious in the direction of the trio in support of a couple more.

By the time I landed, I had forgotten what exactly I made my password. So I asked if I would have a dozen guesses. They said no just one. Thankfully they gave me the hint. Can you help me make sure I can retrieve my luggage?

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  • $\begingroup$ You need to give a response on how well Will did. $\endgroup$
    – owlswipe
    Aug 1, 2016 at 20:38

2 Answers 2

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The number password is

12345, which as OP hints, was inspired by this

because

Having been victorious = won = one
in the direction of = to = two
the trio = three
in support of = for = four
a couple more = another two, in addition to the trio = five

as OP's helpful comment points out, the reason for needing exactly a dozen guesses is because of the

homophones: won/one, to/too/two, and for/four ($2 \times 3 \times 2 = 12$)

from there we can see that the password must be

wontothreeforfive

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    $\begingroup$ @Duncan Probably why it's a partial answer... $\endgroup$
    – James Coyle
    Aug 1, 2016 at 17:19
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    $\begingroup$ Perhaps the couple more is "some", a homophone of sum? $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Aug 1, 2016 at 17:40
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    $\begingroup$ 1-2-3-4-5!? That's the kinda password an idiot would have on his luggage! $\endgroup$
    – User1000547
    Aug 1, 2016 at 21:26
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    $\begingroup$ Additional clarification: you have it from the phrase specifically. So yeah just the non-numerical versions of the words. It means that sentence was the intended answer. He knows it will be of the form 12345, but he would need 12 guesses to do each permutation: to, two too, for four, won, one.. So the sentence spells out which sentence. $\endgroup$
    – Going hamateur
    Aug 1, 2016 at 22:11
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    $\begingroup$ " I didn't want to give these guys my number password" - surely given this the answer can't be what you've given because that would just be giving the guys the number password but in words (Which is the only way you could). Some slight spelling alterations doesn't change the fact that with that alphabetic password I can easily get to the numeric password... $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Aug 1, 2016 at 23:20
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The answer is

hitia

because

Will has an excellent partial answer for the numerical code, breaking the hint down into phrases which are each equivalent to a number. While there are a number of different ways to convert this back into letters, the Op didn't want to give them the number password, so it isn't a direct conversion. I chose the simple method of taking the first letter of each phrase. This gives the hint a second use, since each phrase is directly related to the new passcode as much as to the original one, and it keeps the same number of digits as the original passcode, which should make it easier to figure out.

or else it is

hbios

because the hint

can be broken into phrases that hint at numbers (as Will mentioned), but the length can broken into segments of word length equivalent to each number. The password is then the first letter of each segment. This keeps the passcode length the same as the original, while keeping the hint useful for decoding both the original and the new passcode. This is slightly more secure than the first answer (and correspondingly harder to remember) since each phrase gives you the number, and the number gives you the word to take the letter from - which means just picking out the phrases isn't enough.

the hint breakdown is, therefore,

For the first passcode: Having been victorious/won/1 - in the direction of/to/2 - the trio/3 - in support of/for/4 - a couple more/two, in addition to the trio/3, makes 5. Then take the first letter of each phrase. for the second passcode, take the numbers from the first breakdown, and use to count off words: (1)Having - (2)been victorious - (3)in the direction - (4)of the trio in - (5)support of a couple more. Then take the first letter of each new phrase.

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