Originally Posted by
chrisremo
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?
Without any information about who you are so we can look up your alerts we can't help you. Please email the details to
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However a common misconception is that alert notification should be immediate or just because you searched for something that should trigger an alert, neither are the case. Each alert runs on its own schedule checking at least several times a day. If you want to confirm that an alert will see available inventory/seats on its next scheduled check, just run a Quick Check from the View Saved Alerts page. Did you do that?
Also with Seat Alerts, if the seats that became available are marked as Premium or Paid but you did not choose the specific options to include Paid or Premium seats in the alert then you wouldn't be notified.