Originally Posted by
whimike
I am trying to book an F award for my parents, JFK-DXB on the 15th of February. ExpertFlyer is showing A=4 for this date on the 11 PM flight (EK202). However, EK.com is showing no availability at all. I thought Flex F Awards come out of discounted F inventory (A bucket) and there is definitely A bucket available on the flight.
I already PM'ed ExpertFlyer Voice to see if they can let me know the reason for the discrepancy. Has anybody else here found out what the deal is?
Originally Posted by
whimike
Just as a follow-up, I called the EK service center and they are telling me that FLEX F awards come out of the same Z bucket as SAVER F awards. Does that sound correct? ExpertFlyer shows FLEX F awards coming out of the A bucket.
As a further datapoint, the flight is JFK-DXB-MLE, and ExpertFlyer is showing the DXB-MLE EK652 as O=0 (Business FLEX award), yet at EK.com, EK652 is showing as having FLEX Business award seats available.
The problem looks to be that you were searching each segment separately when you should have been searching for them together. EK uses married segment logic for awards so you need to search for the entire trip. When you do you'll see that the results are correct:
Results from ExpertFlyer.com
Code:
Awards & Upgrades Search
Departing JFK on 02/15/13 10:00 PM for MLE
Flying EK on booking class A O
Connecting at DXB
Frequency
Flight Stops Depart Arrive Aircraft Reliability Class Description Code Seats
1 Connection
EK 202 0 JFK DXB 388 Daily First - Flex Award A 0
02/15/13 11:00 PM 02/16/13 8:30 PM 82% / 19m Business - Flex Award O 7
EK 652 0 DXB MLE 772 Su,M,Th,F First - Flex Award A 0
02/17/13 9:35 AM 02/17/13 2:50 PM 69% / 23m Business - Flex Award O 4