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ExpertFlyer.com Help Desk Thread

Old Feb 14, 2015, 12:53 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: 747FC
The ExpertFlyer support by email is at [email protected]

This is a community-maintained wiki, it is not necessarily endorsed by ExpertFlyer.

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Searches currently not working:
  • Upgrades - AY, BA, EK, EY, IB, QR, VS
  • Awards - AY, BA, IB, EY, QR, VS

To search AA upgrades:
  • Use the Award & Upgrade tool
  • Only search for individual segments (set the "Connection Preference" drop-down to "Direct/Non-Stop only"). Flight results that are part of a connection won't show the upgrade version of C or A inventory because AA only files upgrade inventory as individual, not married, segments. (Married segments show revenue inventory instead of upgrade inventory.)
  • To avoid confusion, check the "Exclude Codeshares" box, as AA awards and upgrades are not valid on codeshares.




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ExpertFlyer.com Help Desk Thread

Old Jul 15, 2017, 7:12 am
  #1441  
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Never mind.
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Old Jul 15, 2017, 9:56 am
  #1442  
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Originally Posted by Ross0
The mobile site had a handy feature whereby if the user executed a query from a saved search that included +/- 1-3 days, a shortcut appeared on the bottom of the search results screen that allowed the user to query the search on the additional 1-3 days. That seems to be gone (or I am missing it). Has EF removed that functionality? It was a big time saver for me.

Thanks.
The functionality hasn't changed. When you select the saved query from the menu, it then asks you which day you would like to search. We didn't have a link to the other days from the bottom of the results page, although that is a good suggestion.
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Old Jul 15, 2017, 10:22 am
  #1443  
 
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hey - just a public thanks to EF monthly Alert Service! I booked AA award travel a couple months ago for four, leaving Christmas day from Chicago to Rome for 10 days. However I was only able to find the following - ORD-CMH-PHL-LHR-FCO and the same on the return! But taking the advise here, i grabbed what i could since it was on the dates i wanted. I then set up alerts on EF and got my first alert yesterday and was able to cut out CMH on both the outbound and return. Now i'm hoping to cut out London and get some of those taxes back as well! Thanks again for the great service!!
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Old Jul 15, 2017, 1:55 pm
  #1444  
 
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Originally Posted by ExpertFlyer Voice
The functionality hasn't changed. When you select the saved query from the menu, it then asks you which day you would like to search. We didn't have a link to the other days from the bottom of the results page, although that is a good suggestion.
Hmm. Am I imagining this or do you have this functionality in other search results screens? I could have sworn this was there. Thanks!
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Old Jul 15, 2017, 2:15 pm
  #1445  
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Originally Posted by eddieras
hey - just a public thanks to EF monthly Alert Service! I booked AA award travel a couple months ago for four, leaving Christmas day from Chicago to Rome for 10 days. However I was only able to find the following - ORD-CMH-PHL-LHR-FCO and the same on the return! But taking the advise here, i grabbed what i could since it was on the dates i wanted. I then set up alerts on EF and got my first alert yesterday and was able to cut out CMH on both the outbound and return. Now i'm hoping to cut out London and get some of those taxes back as well! Thanks again for the great service!!
You're welcome. Glad we could help!

Originally Posted by Ross0
Hmm. Am I imagining this or do you have this functionality in other search results screens? I could have sworn this was there. Thanks!
Maybe you're thinking of the Seat Map searches with links at the bottom for the other cabins? Either way if you want to discuss further please send us an email at [email protected]

Last edited by TWA884; Jul 16, 2017 at 9:19 am Reason: Merge consecutive posts by the same member; please use the multi-quote function
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 3:04 pm
  #1446  
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Originally Posted by danger
Interesting. In the guide at the bottom of page four it says "The fares shown include taxes . . ."
You can't really include taxes because you don't know the itinerary yet. A fare published on LONSYD could be valid through any of hundreds of airports but the tax calculation needs to know exactly how you travelled between those two points.
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Old Jul 18, 2017, 8:02 am
  #1447  
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It used to be that Expert Flyer gave details on why flights were delayed or canceled (maintenance, late arrival of aircraft, etc). Now it just says "flight history exists." This vague terminology doesn't help when trying to determine the official cause of a delay. Anyone know why the change?
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Old Jul 18, 2017, 8:53 am
  #1448  
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Lightbulb

Originally Posted by SkyTeam777
It used to be that Expert Flyer gave details on why flights were delayed or canceled (maintenance, late arrival of aircraft, etc). Now it just says "flight history exists." This vague terminology doesn't help when trying to determine the official cause of a delay. Anyone know why the change?
Nothing has changed on ExpertFlyer. If you select View Comments on the Flight Status results we show the extended comments. We don't control what those extended comments are. If you would like us to look, please email us a specific example.
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Old Jul 25, 2017, 11:18 pm
  #1449  
 
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Why does the China Airways award search allow you to specify the # of seats in the criteria, only to show YES/NO in results? In other airline's cases it seems as though if the results are YES/NO the # of seats in criteria isn't relevant.

Also, is their award availability that you see their member's space or partner space? I'm thinking the former.
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Old Jul 26, 2017, 10:07 am
  #1450  
 
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NZ award availability

I have more than 7 alerts set for NZ business class (I) for different flights and dates, tonight I received 7 separate emails and said the (I) seats were available. It was too good to be true! I called UA and found out none of them were available. It was a false alarm! Wasting more than 1 hour talking to the agent and got excited for nothing! Where did you get the information from for NZ award availability? From NH?
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Old Jul 26, 2017, 12:04 pm
  #1451  
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Originally Posted by GordonGordon
I have more than 7 alerts set for NZ business class (I) for different flights and dates, tonight I received 7 separate emails and said the (I) seats were available. It was too good to be true! I called UA and found out none of them were available. It was a false alarm! Wasting more than 1 hour talking to the agent and got excited for nothing! Where did you get the information from for NZ award availability? From NH?
The NZ award inventory is accurate and reflects what other airline search engines show. For further help please email us the flight specifics to [email protected].
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Old Jul 26, 2017, 12:59 pm
  #1452  
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Lightbulb

Originally Posted by nichojo
Why does the China Airways award search allow you to specify the # of seats in the criteria, only to show YES/NO in results? In other airline's cases it seems as though if the results are YES/NO the # of seats in criteria isn't relevant.

Also, is their award availability that you see their member's space or partner space? I'm thinking the former.
That's not the case. Once you select the airline, the Quantity option is shown if the results will be Yes/No, as such we would need the Quantity to search for. If you need help with a specific search email us at [email protected]

No, it's partner award space.
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Old Jul 26, 2017, 7:03 pm
  #1453  
 
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Right after I got the 7 email alerts, I called United agent, she said she didn't find anything available. I hanged up and called again, different agent said the same thing, nothing was available, then I immediately tried to search the (I) availability from Aeroplan and United websites and got nothing, after that I tried Award Nexus, NH found all the (I) available as exactly what ExpertFlyer found. I think it's a computer glitch from NH, so that's why I asked you if ExpertFlyer got the information from NH. Now everything gets back to normal, none of the (I) seats are available when I've searched from ExpertFlyer just now. I really got excited for nothing when I got the emails from ExpertFlyer.


Originally Posted by ExpertFlyer Voice
The NZ award inventory is accurate and reflects what other airline search engines show. For further help please email us the flight specifics to [email protected].
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Old Jul 27, 2017, 12:05 am
  #1454  
 
Join Date: Jul 2017
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Expert Flyer -- Useless?

I apologize in advance if this ruffles anyone's feathers -- I'm honestly just frustrated.

After constantly getting references on all of the various travel blogs about how useful Expert Flyer is for finding award seats, I finally took the plunge and decided to subscribe to a Premium membership. I was hoping for something like Matrix--a powerful search engine that would allow me to search for exactly the combination of flights/airlines/etc. that I want--only with the added bonus of showing award availability and setting up alerts....except the site is so clunky and has such limited functionality that it's mostly useless.

(1) No multi-city/open jaw search. The first search I tried was for an upcoming trip to Colombia. I want to go from SNA to Bogota and Cartagena for about a week sometime in February. I don't care about the dates, and I don't care which city I visit first; I'll just do an open-jaw--fly into one city, fly out of the other. If I just wanted to price flights, one Matrix search would give me all of that information. Expert Flyer, however, can't even do a multi-city search. I have to first search one-way SNA to Bogota, then one way Cartagena to SNA, then one-way SNA to Cartagena, then one-way Cartagena to SNA....and I can only search for one airline at a time. It's actually EASIER to find award availability on United's or American's or Delta's site than it is through Expert Flyer.

(2) Max of +/- 3 days. On Matrix, and on most of the airlines' websites, you can scan award availability/pricing over the course of a month. Expert Flyer only allows you to search for a max of +/- 3 days....basically a week's worth of flights. For my Colombia trip, that means I not only had to do the four separate searches listed above, I had to multiply that by four -- one for each week in February.

(3) Alerts. The "alert me when award availability opens up" function is so limited it's also laughable. What would be useful is just to be able to give it a city pair, and have it alert you whenever new saver awards open up for that routing. Instead, you have to save an alert for every individual *segment* of every flight, for every day. Another flight I'm looking for is LAX-->JFK in the fall, on either Delta or American. Delta and American each have something like 6-7 non-stops to JFK every day. So, to check award availability for (ex November, I have to set up (a) a separate alert for each individual Delta LAX->JFK flight on Nov. 1; (b) a separate alert for each individual AA LAX->JFK flight on Nov. 1; (c) a separate alert for each individual Delta LAX->JFK flight on Nov. *2*; (d) a separate alert for each individual AA LAX->JFK flight on Nov. *2*; (e) etc., etc. Even Premium members only get 30 alerts; which means that at best, I could cover the first four days of November.

Am I just trying to use Expert Flyer for the wrong purposes? It seems like it's only really useful to check award availability on a couple of specific flights at a time, and that's just not worth $120/year, it seems.
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Old Jul 27, 2017, 12:18 am
  #1455  
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For me, the plus/minus 3 days enables me to search a week at a time (without clicking back and forth from the calendar to see the details as no, I don't want some crazy routing with long layovers even if it is available for minimum miles) and more importantly to save those searches so that they can be redone with just a click. I'm comparing EF to delta.dumb here, although I do very much miss the ability to search for upgrade space on DL using EF.

EF is also a great way to see fare class availability, for example if you want to SDC from a coach ticket on DL, or when trying to construct your own ticket by picking individual segments that have the fare class you need.

With the latest DL "enhancement" to not show seat maps for other cabins unless you do a fresh dummy booking, it can be quick and easy to check seat maps (for example, as a very imperfect way to assess upgrade odds) on EF rather than delta.dumb.

With practice, you'll learn the things that EF does well and the things where you can get the needed information more efficiently from other sources.
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