Originally Posted by
yurtripper
Well in fact it turns out that it doesn't work with Blocked seats either (there was a mistake in my original post). If I select 'any seat' then Blocked seats aren't selectable; if I select 'Include Blocked seats' I can't tick any of the seat selection boxes and so can't create an alert. I understand what you said with regard to Paid seats, but why don't Blocked seats work either?
Also, could you explain what is the function of 'Include Paid seats' if by selecting it you remove any possibility of creating a seat alert?
How can this feature ever work in practice?
You can't specifically select Blocked seats because, don't forget, Blocked seats are not assigned (so they are available) but the airline is blocking them from assignment. However if a Blocked seat becomes un-blocked and turns into Available, then it will trigger an alert for Any Window, Any Aisle, etc if that Blocked seat was an Window or an Aisle seat, etc.
The feature works all the time. Again, "Include Paid Seats" means that a seat that goes from Occupied/Blocked -> Available Paid would trigger the alert. Without specifying that option, only pure Available (with no paid/premium restrictions) seats would trigger the alert.
No, it doesn't "remove any possibility of creating a seat alert". If there is, for example, only 1 window seat available and it is marked as Available Paid, then you can create an Any Window Seat alert because there is no purely "Available" window seat at that time. However if you choose the "Include Paid Seats" option, then of course you wouldn't be able to create a Any Window Seat alert when there is already a Available Paid window seat available, as that alert would just immediately notify you.
Think of the "include" options as "allow X type of seat to trigger the alert".
Again, if you need further help in understanding this, please email us a specific example and we will walk you thru it. This is also explained in the help for the page:
https://www.expertflyer.com/popup/he...p-results.html