While reading thru MR thread I learned about ExpertFlyer.com. I've looked thru the website and it sounds quite interesting. Anyone out there have comments on the usefulness of ExpertFlyer? Looks like ExpertFlyer and FT together could make a great team. I'm trying to reach EXP for the first time and any input or advice that could help me be more efficient w/ my travel plans is appreciated.

I use EF a lot and find it very good. If you do a searh you'll find many threads about it.

I use it, and love it

The only possible improvement I would like is this combined with a booking capability !!!

I'm extremely unhappy with expertflyer.com now. There have been so many changes and there isn't much it can even do now. I used to love it bu t soo much has changed in the last couple of months.

Examples:

If you want to look up a flight status for AA, Expertflyer can no longer do it! I signed up for this as a way to provide proof of the reason my flights were delayed or canceled.

Do you want to see what the lowest fare is? Expertflyer used to force you to enter just a departure date but now they force you to enter a departure date and a return date. This greatly reduces the number of fares that are actually shown. I now go to www.farecompare.com to see if I am buying the lowest published fare or not. I have to search Expertflyer dozens of times to make sure I'm getting useful information.

Want published fare rules for AA? Expertflyer provides a very shorthand version of the rules that make it nearly impossible to figure out what the actual routing rules are. I now use www.expedia.ca.

The only thing that I see that Expertflyer can do that isn't easily obtained elsewhere is that you can use them to view award seating availability.

I did renew my membership last week, mostly because they haven't responded to my email when I asked how to cancel my membership. I have begged them to go back to their old site as all of their "upgrades" are very much "downgrades." They claim the problems have nothing to do with that but so far they have made no effort to fix the problems.

You can sign up for a free trial and see if it is worth it. Good luck

There is nothing about expertflyer that justifies the subscription in my experience. I use seatcounter instead. Well, for awards it could be useful but I'm not looking to book any as of now. Also, I'm very disappointed by how their "flight status" has just been broken for about a month now. It won't give arrival or departure times for any flight on any airline (at least that I use), let alone allow me to find out why a flight is delayed or cancelled. This is a major downgrade.

I did renew my membership last week, mostly because they haven't responded to my email when I asked how to cancel my membership. I have begged them to go back to their old site as all of their "upgrades" are very much "downgrades." They claim the problems have nothing to do with that but so far they have made no effort to fix the problems.



Apologies for the lack of response. It is not the norm. To answer your question, our FAQ section, in the Account/Billing section, answers this very question:

"Log in to ExpertFlyer.com and click on "My Account" from the left side menu bar. Then, click the Subscription tab and set the Type to "No Renewal" and then click Save. Now your subscription will not renew at the end of your current billing period."

The shortcomings you note indeed have nothing to do with the changes we recently introduced (such as the 5-day free trial period), nor any specific decision on our part to limit or eliminate information that was previously viewable. We are working to restore this information and improve the site as well.

We thank you for your comments and appreciate your continued support.

EFV

Are there any free sites that can show you all the possible fare basis codes and rules?

They claim the problems have nothing to do with that but so far they have made no effort to fix the problems.


And you know that how?

The most valuable thing ExpertFlyer does for me is monitor needed award avail and alert me when the seats become avail. This is enabled me to book peak award travel on the exact dates desired a number of times. It is has also snagged me the only upgrade seat on on a F0 J1 flight by alerting at the exact time the 1 J seat (paid busisess class) turned into 1 C seat (upgrade business class). I call the EXP desk and my upgrade is processed...

Are there any free sites that can show you all the possible fare basis codes and rules?

Yes, but not as easy to work with as Expert Flyer.

Zuji, for example, will show a list of fares in a market when doing a flexible date search.

Travelocity used the have a fare list but I don't have the link for that anymore.

Don't even think about using EF seat maps to see E+ on UA. It's always full ;)

Not their fault (UA feeds them poop) but it sure diminshes the value for this subscriber. In fact, I would be loathe to recommend EF for a pure UA flyer as it appears UA does not publish award seating nor the E+ seat maps to EF's GDS accesses. Main redeeming factor is being able to store common inquiries for fast retrieval. Since FC (classic and beta) started having operational issues of late (not to mention conflicts with some Mac browsers), I've been using EF more, as well as ITA.

Pat

I could never figure out how to check for "Award and Upgrade availability for Select Airlines" that ExpertFlyer promotes. But thanks for showing me how to select "no renewal".

... I would be loathe to recommend EF for a pure UA flyer as it appears UA does not publish award seating nor the E+ seat maps to EF's GDS accesses...
This is the main reason I dumped KVS and never started with EF. As a pure UA flyer, the info I wanted just didn't seem to be available from either one.

JR

I could never figure out how to check for "Award and Upgrade availability for Select Airlines" that ExpertFlyer promotes. But thanks for showing me how to select "no renewal".

That, my friend, is clearly spelled out on their site.

It is also the same way you check for any other particular fare bucket you want to see. Click on avail, specify origin, destination, fare bucket, airline, etc and submit...and it gives you the data.

If you can't figure out how to see award avail, you didn't try very hard!

The most valuable thing ExpertFlyer does for me is monitor needed award avail and alert me when the seats become avail. This is enabled me to book peak award travel on the exact dates desired a number of times. It is has also snagged me the only upgrade seat on on a F0 J1 flight by alerting at the exact time the 1 J seat (paid busisess class) turned into 1 C seat (upgrade business class). I call the EXP desk and my upgrade is processed...

You probably need a cellphone with messaging capability to take true advantage of that?

And EF does not have Qantas award seat availability, as I recall?

Steve

You probably need a cellphone with messaging capability to take true advantage of that?

And EF does not have Qantas award seat availability, as I recall?

Steve

Well hopefully only temporarily - it did, and recently ceased showing it. But I have read posts that seatcounter is now showing U/Z so hopefully the EF team can also do so.

Do you want to see what the lowest fare is? Expertflyer used to force you to enter just a departure date but now they force you to enter a departure date and a return date. This greatly reduces the number of fares that are actually shown. I now go to www.farecompare.com to see if I am buying the lowest published fare or not. I have to search Expertflyer dozens of times to make sure I'm getting useful information.


Why not just set the Filter to "No"?
You will then get all of the fares, even if you don't put in a return date. Of course, and this was always the case, if you have specific dates in mind, and you want to make sure the fares you see actually apply to the dates you want to fly, put in both the dates. This way, you won't be disappointed...

Why not just set the Filter to "No"?
You will then get all of the fares, even if you don't put in a return date. Of course, and this was always the case, if you have specific dates in mind, and you want to make sure the fares you see actually apply to the dates you want to fly, put in both the dates. This way, you won't be disappointed...
How do you do that? If I leave the departure date field empty it says, "Depart Date is required." and if I type, "no" it says, "Depart Date is invalid." I see no options relevant to the fare search in the preferences section.

EDIT: When I emailed expertflyer about this, they said that their provider requires all fare searches to be validated by date. I would very much like to know how to do this. Thanks!

I'm wondering when EF is finally going to restore the old service quality which I really liked.

For example, it's still not possible to find many fares, such as NZ fares ex Germany to New Zealand. They certainly do exist (my TA found them), but EF only cites LH fares, which are more expensive and more restrictive. Additionally, the routing information provided for the LH fares are plain wrong. Again, I had to rely on my TA to come up with the correct information.

How do you do that? If I leave the departure date field empty it says, "Depart Date is required." and if I type, "no" it says, "Depart Date is invalid." I see no options relevant to the fare search in the preferences section.

It's the Return Date field you need to leave blank. A Depart date was always required and no faring system will work without one. It's the Return date that you now need to enter to get the R/T fares to come back IF you don't set the "Filter Results" option to No.

The "Filter Results" option is down further on the form, just scroll down. :)

It's the Return Date field you need to leave blank. A Depart date was always required and no faring system will work without one. It's the Return date that you now need to enter to get the R/T fares to come back IF you don't set the "Filter Results" option to No.

The "Filter Results" option is down further on the form, just scroll down. :)
Ahhh...That was so easy that this really makes me look dumb :D THANKS!