FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - ExpertFlyer.com - Master Information and Updates Thread

Oct 16, 2016, 8:14 am

#1041

TWA884

Moderator: Travel Safety/Security, Travel Tools, California, Los Angeles; FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Dec 2009

Location: LAX

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Posts: 20,631

Quote:

Originally Posted by lonemorf

Hi,
I have skimmed over the various threads on here, and there is one thing I can't work out.
For a regular traveller, using one airline, only flying a couple of destinations (but a lot), is the pro membership on ExpertFlyer worth the money?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Cheers

Quote:

Originally Posted by dhuey

Let me put in here a big plug for ExpertFlyer. Even though I'm very much a travel geek, I resisted paying the bucks to get this service until a few months ago. Man, is this useful. I'm quickly finding the award and upgrade information that used to be such a laborious process.

If you look at your miles as your ticket into the premium cabins, EF is well worth the fee.

Quote:

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