enzian

I attempted to book a Condor flight from Frankfurt to SEA for next October 2 this morning, using our Alaska miles. The two seats we wanted in Business Class were available, and I was able to put them in my cart and proceed through the booking process with names, passport info, credit card selection, etc. all without a glitch. But when I hit the “pay now” button to confirm everything, the next screen came up with an error message: “We are unable to confirm flight availability at this time.” I was advised to “try again later” or choose a different date or route. There were no other dates with Business Class seats around the time we need to fly home.

I tried seven times over the next 90 minutes, all with the same result. In the end I changed to the only British airways flight that still offered business class seats on that day, which cost considerably more.

Any idea what is going on? It’s not a problem on our end—I booked our recent Condor flight TO Frankfurt with our Alaska miles and the same passenger information. I see the seats are still there, which means no one else has been able to book them either. Usually they are gone by mid-morning on the day they are released.

NoLaGent

Interesting...I see the flight too, but I'm wondering if it has anything to do with it not becoming bookable until t-330 days? That's actually tomorrow, Nov. 6th, but this is just a guess.

Maybe someone with ExpertFlyer can see if it's actually showing available on that side?

enzian

I have been watching these flights for a few weeks to figure out when they are released. It has been 1day earlier than t-330 days. For example, the Sept. 30 2023 flight was released two days ago, on Thursday Nov.3. The business class seats disappeared by mid-day—which is what I saw consistently. The Economy and Premium Economy seats last longer—much longer in the case of the Economy seats.

The other European partner airlines (British Airways, Icelandair, Aer Lingus) released their award seats for Oct. 2 this morning as well, and I was able to book the one flight to Seattle that still had Business Class seats left with no trouble at all. (British Airways releases award seats to their Executive Club members at t-355, so they usually are all booked before AS mileage members ever get a chance, and there are only the dreaded mixed cabin itineraries left).

The Oct. 2 flight is on the Condor website for booking as a revenue ticket today. But not, apparently as a reward flight in business class with Alaska miles. At least not yet—-the seats are still there at 3 pm Pacific time.

So I was just curious what is going on, since the same-day disappearance of the Condor business class seats on every other “release” day I have looked at for weeks suggests that this has not been an issue before. That was why I got up so early this morning to book those seats!

UAPremierExec

Try to call in, while rare - it does happen that the inventory could be off. When you go in to try to book a flight, it pulls from the system to grab the seats, however the "real" request to book and confirm those seats doesn't happen until the very end. What's happening on the back-end is DE's system is 'unconfirming' the seats which then results in that message. It could be that only 1 seat is left, or its a default inventory for that flight (if it IS 330 days out) and not true inventory on the flight. Example: J5 but its really 0.

When you talk to an agent online, they do the same process but can also do a "direct access" request and pull the true, live inventory.

cpworld

I just signed up for ExpertFlyer and turns out that Condor is one of the airlines that is not searchable with EF

enzian

The business class seats did eventually disappear yesterday, late in the day, so I assume someone was able to book them.

but this is OK; flying with BA we can spend a couple of extra days in Italy instead of traveling to Frankfurt over those two days. It does cost more though, due to BA’s crazy high fees for miles tix in business class.

We actually normally fly BA using their mileage plan (Avios), but when we run out of those we use our Alaska miles. We have had two good experiences with Condor recently, so it seemed worth a try even though we were starting from Italy.

TheDudeAbides

Huh? I can see Condor (DE) on EF:

cpworld

You are right. As I mentioned, this is my first day with ExpertFlyer -- apologies. When I click on "Awards & Upgrades" Condor is not in the pulldown. But when I look at "Flight Availability" I do see Condor flights. So if I was looking for business class award availability I need to find the right class codes - right? In your example, is "I" what I'd be looking for?

Also -- found this link when I was trying to figure out why which said it was not searchable.
https://upgradedpoints.com/travel/expertflyer/

cpworld

Like you, I have been watching the flights and seeing the same pattern -- business class showing available in the morning, gone by mid-day. Tried to book today for October 4th and getting the same error message. I tried calling in but no luck. Not really sure what is going on, and how those seats are being booked, because website and call center both unsuccessful even though they show available.

cpworld

just checking back in to see if anyone has successfully booked business class award travel on Condor for 2023?

jsguyrus

In the last two weeks this now makes JAL, Singapore, LATAM, and Condor that is all giving the same "cant be booked" message for J class. Thus far the only thing the international desk has been saying is their "system doesn't communicate in real time" or even anywhere close to real time, so what we see is not what is available. Personally I'm a bit doubtful as it seems to work just fine for Y bookings.

MODs, perhaps join all these threads into a master thread?

Flying for Fun

I booked a while back but have JFK-FRA//FRA-CPT in the second week of January with a nine day stopover in FRA. 2 J seats at 65K each. Flying QR J back.

James

985X

It didn't work for my JL Y and FI Y bookings either.

notquiteaff

I booked a couple of speculative Condor award flights last weekend. I don’t recall the error, but for each reservation I got an error on the final page when hitting “Pay Now”. Each time I checked the page for any other red errors, saw nothing, hit Pay Now again, and the purchase went through,

cpworld

In Business? How far out?