The Wolf

Under the following link, Expertflyer claims to be able to show LX O class.
Is this true? I thought this was only available to SEN / HON via the m&m hotline.

bobert24

Confession: I'm on my 4th "5 day free trial" in ~2 years. Every time I've signed up, I've fully intended to pay for a membership. But I've found your website so frustrating to use that I could never bring myself to do it. Fixing these issues would most likely lead to a not-insignificant increase in your paying membership.

The biggest problem is that there's a very steep learning curve to using this site, and next to no information to help with that. I'm more than willing to put in the time and effort, but not when all I can do is attempt to learn by trial and error, and hope that I've guessed correctly as to why some things work and some don't. The help guide provided on the site is extremely limited, and doesn't answer some very basic (much less more advanced) questions. For example, just a couple posts up:

This question should not have to be asked. I've been trying to figure this out since signing up again a few days ago. This is extremely basic information that's required to use your site as effectively as possible - it should be in your documentation. Right now the documentation feels less like a "premium" service, and more like what you would expect to get from somebody developing free software in their spare time, out of the kindness of their heart.

I understand that the back-end systems that your site interfaces with are very complex, and the way that they function isn't something you have control over. I'm not in any way asking for you to change that - you can't. All I'm suggesting is that you provide some explanations of how things work that you do have control over.

This is something that all businesses have to face eventually - they understand what they do, and from their perspective (and with the knowledge they have), it's very simple. Outsiders/customers, on the other hand, don't have that intimate knowledge of how it all works, and are left to somewhat fend for themselves. They will often just not even bother to try, as is the case here.

I guess I should mention that I'm not new to this - I've flown over a million miles & redeemed over 3 million frequent flyer miles over the past few years, etc. I have a strong background in IT, and understand how these systems work. I'm familiar with fare buckets, can quote more than a few routing rules for various airlines off the top of my head, stuff like that. I've very rarely been called dumb in my life - usually the opposite (although I'm sure that will change after this post). This is in no way a DYKWIA or anything like that - I'm simply trying to make it clear that this frustration with your site's usability isn't limited to complete newbies who've never been on a plane before.

I'd love to sign up for your site and actually use it for its intended purposes. If I could get the functionality out of it that I know it's supposed to have, it would be worth every penny. But right now it's lacking so much basic information that using it is instead a very frustrating, wasteful experience.

ssbmoro

I just signed up for ExpertFlyer so I'm still learning my way around. Is there a way to exclude or filter out coterminal airports from query results?

For example, I'm looking for award space from BWI - JFK, and I'm only interested in starting and ending at those two airports. But all of my search results are cluttered with flights starting in DCA or IAD and ending in LGA or EWR as well.

The Wolf

This seems to have been corrected now.

ExpertFlyer Voice

Seeing the alternative airports in the search results means that there isn't any award inventory for the airports you specified, otherwise they would be returned first. If you need further help please email us with the date/airline/class specifics.

gilbertaue

Looking at SQ352/351 for SIN-CPH-SIN and can't find the I award booking class in the system. Does it mean SQ is not loading any I upgrade seats?

lcpteck

Yeah that means there's no award space available for now. You can create an alert which will send you a notification when it opens up.

gilbertaue

Thanks lcpteck!

PV_Premier

I am having trouble reconciling the results for QF searches. I see two J seats on a certain date YVR-SYD booking with AS miles, but when I try to confirm them, AS says no.

ExpertFlyer says: A flight will only be returned by Qantas if it has an Award class that has availability greater than zero.

When I search for the flight on ExpertFlyer I see:


QF 76 0 YVR
xx/xx/17
8:00 PM SYD
xx/xx/17
6:15 AM 744
Unavailable
70% / 13m
Business - Award & Upgrade U No

Does "No" mean that this flight actually has no availability, or does it actually have availability simply because it showed up in the search results?

lcpteck

NO means no availability. It will say YES if there is.

ExpertFlyer Voice

As in one of the other award classes, not Business, has availability so the flight was returned to us. However there are no Business awards on that flight.

pbd456

is there a way to know the booking code of a fare? for example, the y fare on tpe.rsw on jl allows on ac or b6. but i dont.think they book into y class. thanks

Globaliser

Have you tried clicking the "C" icon at the far right hand end of the row for that fare? The page that you access through that should list the applicable booking codes.

percysmith

New POS: DE/SG/AU/HK

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...l#post27779434

Tripled the effectiveness of EF. Thanks v v much.

nichojo

Hi EF Gang,

Are China Airlines award searching working? I saw nothing returned for a city pair (SYD-AKL) however when I called Delta they were able to see and book an award ticket on them. Note - this wasn't shown online on DL.com.