Originally Posted by BasedinCLE

Hello all - I'm sure the nature of this question has been discussed ad nauseam, but I've not been able to find a thread to put my question in after searching for 15 minutes. Anyway...

I booked the flight CLE-EWR-BHX / LHR-IAD-CLE in business. I need to book the same itinerary for another person; however, Concur and United.com are showing no business fares available for the CLE-EWR-BHX segment. I'm only given the option of economy (U). In expert mode, there are business class inventory buckets available - see below. For the one flight I was able to purchase, I'm in Y for the CLE-EWR segment and D for the EWR-BHX segment. The first segment is on a RJ145 while the second segment is on a B752.

I know expert mode is not 100% indicative of seats available for purchase, but can I assume that a seat will open up? While I have the ability to change my flight, it will result in a very long layover at EWR - which I would like to avoid.

Am I reading expert mode inventory buckets incorrectly? Is there some other way I can structure my search to get the business class seat? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.