I've been paying for ExpertFlyer for a few months now and I really love the tools for searching on demand but I am starting to wonder if there's something I'm not understanding about the email alerts.
I have not ever gotten a single EF alert (except for the test alerts) about seats/upgrades/anything, and yet very frequently when I just check back in and run the search myself, or go through the airline's website, I find that what I set an alert for has been available.
This happened to me just now--I changed my Alaska flight to an earlier one, and all that was available was a single middle seat, so I set up an alert for windows/aisles. That was several hours ago. Just now, I logged into Alaska and found a small number of better seats had been released so I grabbed one; never got an EF alert. If I had waited for the EF alert (if it ever came at all) I suspect those few seats would have been gone by then.
I assume that it is not feasible for EF to perform constant checks on every user's alerts, as it would be very taxing on their servers. But over a few months of use I have not a single time gotten a useful alert notification even when my own periodic re-searching has found what I'm looking for. It makes it feel kind of pointless to pay for the service, even though I appreciate its impressive functionality.
Am I possibly misusing the service, or misunderstanding its function?