<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by swag:
I've actually had good luck in the past calling the 800 res number, saying that I saw such-and-such a price advertised, and I'd like the closest availability to such-and-such a date.
I don't know if the agent has a better interface to find available seats by class, or if they're just doing the same trial and error that I would, but either way, it's a little less frustrating.</font>
I've seen travel agents have the following ability and I'm sure reservation agents have it too: For any particular day and route, they can see what Fare Codes are availabe. so If you say Feb 14th EWR - LHR, they can pull up all flights for that day and see how many V class seats, Y class seats, etc. are available for each flight. So if they know a particular fare sales falls under a V class seat, it's easier for them just to go through a few days and see which days a V class is available and then go on and see the same for a return.... instead of what we have to do - plug in the departure and return date at the same time.
With regards to the paint analogy posted by the original poster, I've actually had a similiar situation with Budget Rent a Car. I had an expiring convertible rental certificate which I wanted to use. I was flexible enough to pick up the car from any location in 3 METRO AREAS (which probably had a hundred locations between them). Hoever I was told they didn't have the capability to see where a particular car type was available and I had to specify one location at a time. I told them "Look, I have a convertible certificate, I want to rent a convertible on ANY day in the next 3 weeks at ANY location. Please find me a location that has a convertible that I can get". Their reply, "Sorry, sir. you have to specify a location. We can only look up one location at a time".