Originally Posted by dkerr

I've seen people question here and elsewhere the value of ExpertFlyer subscription fee. I thought I would document two cases where EF has clearly paid for itself...

A few weeks ago I was shopping for a New York to Europe flight in June. I had a specific flight in mind and found fares around the $950 mark. But I didn't act. Two weeks ago I decided to buy and went back to book it... fare had jumped to ~$1400. Ugh. United had zeroed out the lower fare classes. Rather than pay the $1400 I suspected that if I was patient they might release seats at the lower fare -- so I set up an EF alert. A few days ago the alert triggered and I went in and purchased the flight at $950.

Last year I had purchased a business class flight New York to SE Asia, it was pretty pricey, fully refundable. I set up an EF alert for the "discounted" business class fare buckets just in case it became available. Remarkably at about 24 hours before flight time the alert fired... I was able to purchase a new business class ticket on exactly the same flights and then cancel my existing ticket... savings in the order of $2000.

Then there are award seat, upgrade and empty seat alerts to which you cannot attach a specific monetary value. E.g. I know that if a higher tier frequent flyer gets upgraded then their nice aisle or window seat at the front of economy will free up... so I put alerts on those so that I can move myself from further back in economy cabin should anything open.

I don't travel nearly as much as i used to, but I have kept my EF subscription active because it really doesn't take much for the $99 to be worth it.

Keep up the good work guys.
Thank you

DAK