Originally Posted by
NotHamSarnie
So I have just taken a trial subscription to EF. I have bumbled on pretty well by myself so far without EF, scoring S fares & SWU to Z buckets, rarely paying more than S, sometimes I. I took a trial EF because I need to watch an O fare availability & this seemed the most efficient way.
I have begun to explore EF for the rest of my travel, and am puzzled.
First, are there really no Z buckets from the US to Europe (in particular LHR) anymore? There must be some, as I managed to use a SWU on one yesterday (for travel in April). I am now looking at June, same itinerary. It seems quite easy to get Z bucket on the way back, but Zilch on the way over, over the entire month of June. Is this because people are more likely to buy J to be able to sleep on the East-bound, whereas sitting up in EC on the West-bound is more tolerable so DL throws us a Z-bone? I looked in April, and the Z inventory ex-US is 0, so I'm not sure how I scored my win yesterday, perhaps the only Z bucket seat in the whole of April??
Second, I find S fares (few and far between) by looking at availability under "Upgrades and awards" and selecting S in addition to Z. But when I plug in the dates I know have S fare availability, and search on Fares for those days, nothing shows up in S (whether or not I use "Validate"). Can old hands help an EF n00b? Right now, I feel I do better by myself, stumbling through dl.dumb & making calls.
Thanks!
1) June eastbound TATL is probably more difficult as it is peak season for Americans heading to Europe, and now is the booking timframe, so they are probably restricting them. Weekdays are easier, for example I could find Z inventory on JFK-LHR on June 5, 12, etc. The Olympics don't particularly help either I suppose, with LHR. AMS and CDG also tend to be harder due to their hub nature, so DL tends to release Z on those flights much later.
There is plenty of Z inventory to some other European destinations however, such as JFK-ZRH, JFK-BRU, JFK-FRA (even on weekend days for these destinations).
2) To search "S" inventory, you need to look at the "FLight Availability" tab, not the Awards and Upgrades section.
From personal experience, I find EF invaluable for detecting Z inventory in advance. I pretty much have a 99.9% accuracy rate with DL inventory using EF...