Travel Tools - ExpertFlyer: frustrated in using it to find DL flights

I must be missing the point of the ExpertFlyer website. Nearly all my flying is on DL, and heavily international. For planning I use mostly the DL website, kayak, matrix.itasoftware.com, and occasional others. With sufficient time I find surprisingly similar fares among these sites, and can minimize a fare and get a reservation. My trips often emphasize distance (or distance per unit cost) in order to build mileage.

Despite having a premium membership in ExpertFlyer for several months, I have yet to find them useful for finding real flights. Flight availability and fare information seem to be completely independent functions, and mouth-watering fares a fraction of DL's fares are frequently shown. Yet these low fares are nowhere available on sites where you can actually book flights.

Is there any ardent fan who can point me to help on this?

There is a travel tools forum http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-tools-701/

I'm going to move your thread there as Community Buzz forum is for discussion of Flyertalk meetings/Dos.

Willie
co-moderator Community Buzz

Perhaps these two guides can help you understand how to use Expertflyer more effectively and how best to interpret its data:

http://www.expertflyer.com/edu-guide.pdf

http://www.expertflyer.com/user-guide.pdf

The Fares section on EF will list all possible fares for a route and, just as important, the rules that need to be followed for that fare. But for a particular flight a particular fare may not be available because the inventory for that particular fare bucket may be sold out.

I must be missing the point of the ExpertFlyer website. Nearly all my flying is on DL, and heavily international. For planning I use mostly the DL website, kayak, matrix.itasoftware.com, and occasional others. With sufficient time I find surprisingly similar fares among these sites, and can minimize a fare and get a reservation. My trips often emphasize distance (or distance per unit cost) in order to build mileage.

Despite having a premium membership in ExpertFlyer for several months, I have yet to find them useful for finding real flights. Flight availability and fare information seem to be completely independent functions, and mouth-watering fares a fraction of DL's fares are frequently shown. Yet these low fares are nowhere available on sites where you can actually book flights.

Is there any ardent fan who can point me to help on this?

As a DL frequent flier, I feel exactly the same way you do! Does't seem to be as valuable for DL fliers.

Despite having a premium membership in ExpertFlyer for several months, I have yet to find them useful for finding real flights. Flight availability and fare information seem to be completely independent functions, and mouth-watering fares a fraction of DL's fares are frequently shown. Yet these low fares are nowhere available on sites where you can actually book flights.

Is there any ardent fan who can point me to help on this?

As inlanikai pointed out, the EduGuide http://www.expertflyer.com/edu-guide.pdf will help you understand the relationship between the published fare tariffs and availability of those fares. ExpertFlyer wasn't built to be a low fare search website.

As a DL frequent flier, I feel exactly the same way you do! Does't seem to be as valuable for DL fliers.


For Delta, one unique value point is that only ExpertFlyer shows Z,X,V,G upgrade inventory for DL flights. As a Delta PM, you might find that valuable. Also, since DL upgrades can require certain coach fare classes to be upgradeable, you would use the Fare Information search to determine the relative prices of the upgradeable coach fares vs others.

ExpertFlyer also shows award inventory for SkyTeam partners such as AF and KL. (full list here (http://www.expertflyer.com/sessionlessClassList.do))

That is in addition to our other unique features such as Flight Alerts (alerting for fare/award/upgrade inventory), Seat Alerts, etc.