zpaul

I found some good fares on EF just 15 minutes ago for travel from SCL to both LAX and DFW in the next weeks, and they are substantially lower than what shows on AA.com. I called the EXP desk and she gave me the same fares on aa.com, even though I told her that I have the fare basis codes. What can I do to book these fares? They are valid for my trip - dates, routing, min/max stay, etc. Do I have to go through an agent?

The same fares do not appear on ITA.

Thanks!

irishguy28

Are you searching for all fares, or only the fares currently available on your dates?

No-one can sell you a seat in a fare bucket that has sold out or that has been closed due to, e.g. advance purchase deadlines being passed.

Often1

You are looking at published fares which are likely not available for your proposed ticket. If provided the fare basis (full 5 characters), the agent ought to be able to tell you whether there is space on the segments you wish to book.

It is not uncommon for the cheapest fare bases to have sold out early and for tickets in the same cabin to progressively cost more as the date of the flight approaches.

zpaul

Ah...so EF will show all fares that were published for the route/date, regardless of whether they are available for sale or not at the time I'm looking? I thought I had ticked a box for only validated available fares, but maybe I didn't.

Dave Noble

It validates whether the fare is applicable for the specific dates selected, it doesn't check availability. e.g. if you choose depart mon and return friday , it will not show fares that require a sat night stay or if you are booking for 3 days time it wont show fares that have a 7 day advance purchase requirement

Use the check availability option and see whether there is availability in the desired booking class

RogerD408

Also, keep in mind EF does a sweep of AA to see what's available. It may be you found a fare that has sold out, but EF has not seen the change yet. Even AA.com gets an update of the back office system on some schedule. But when you go to buy, it submits the request that may or may not get approved.

It seems many are expecting a single, master database with everyone looking at the same instance. Unfortunately that would be a very slow system and expose the system to disastrous hacking. What we see via AA.com is a copy of what is in the back office where the CSRs may be connected. Where EF is getting its data could be a special feed from that back office system or AA.com, in which case is just that much more out of date.

So how do you know if the person/service you are working with is the most current? You don't. Just like asking questions of a CSR, if you believe you are not getting the correct answer, HUCA. The same works for online systems, try again a few minutes later. Maybe you'll be looking at newer data. It's too bad they don't reveal when the data was last refreshed.

zpaul

Thanks, everyone! I have an AA CTO in my office building, so I was there right at 09:00 when they opened, and while the fares I found on EF were not available, they found me something even better for the same dates, different destination.

I really appreciate the patient, helpful explanations about EF.

JDiver

Wow, what a huge convenience! ¡Que suerte!

So many CTOs shut over the years...

zpaul

I love it - took them flowers the day they opened. Now I do all my research online but head there to let them book...fun to have the old-style tickets for my trips, and it's good to have a decent relationship with them when things go janky!