Full Score, we answered your question truthfully, as you requested. While we are happy to engage with our customers here on FT, however that doesn't mean anyone can tell us how/when/if to answer any given question, that is our business decision. I understand all this is frustrating. Patience is a virtue and a hard learned lesson when dealing with airlines and airline data for 15+ years.
So to clear things up, first, regarding:
you have conveniently ignored my main point which is that Reward Flight Finder AND SeatSpy have had similar data problems with BA regarding award availability, but they have managed to fix them in a very short amount of time
No, we didn't ignore your point, we answered it. You are assuming that those sites and EF work the same way (they don't) or show the same data (they don't) or use the same data sources (they don't), as such what breaks/fixed on one has no bearing on the other. Apples and oranges. I understand you may not know that as you aren't privy to the internal workings of the various websites, but then please don't argue with us when we explain it. If you're going to ask a question, please be willing to hear the answer.
Second, regarding:
...you have known about the issue with BA for MONTHS...
You are making the assumption that there has been one issue that has been going on since May, and that is just not accurate. I went into the logs and the current problem with BA award inventory not being available at all started on October 13, and not before. The "BA award inventory is temporarily unavailable due to an issue with our data provider..." message was put up about a day later once we realized it was not going to be fixed overnight.
The error that happened between May 30th and June 8th was that specific city pairs weren't returning data that should have been, but it wasn't a blanket issue with the service. Again, separate from the issue that started October 13, regardless of what you may think. Further there are many other instances where we know that BA didn't correctly publish, or incorrectly published, their award data so that it didn't match airline websites. This happens more often then one would think, but makes sense when you realize it's all based on 50 yr old mainframe tech where the answer to a question changes depending on how and who is asking.
The "An error has occurred while communicating.." error, that may be returned for
any search, is when there is some sort of code/server error or communications error or the system gets back a response that it can't parse or understand, and happens from time to time. GDS/airline API's aren't perfect, neither are web servers. It's not "Untrue", code doesn't lie to you.
You now have 2 choices:
- Wait until the problem is solved and then contact us for possible consideration based on the total time the issue was present (from Oct 13), optionally setting your account not to renew if it's due for renewal soon.
- Contact us now and ask for a pro-rated refund and end your subscription.
Either one we would be happy to do for you, but that's it. Please direct any further correspondence on the matter to us directly as we won't respond to it on this thread.
Regards,
EFV