It's actually quite easy. Simply click on the multi-quote icon (it's the icon with the quotation marks and the plus sign) on the bottom of each post you want to quote EXCEPT for the last one. On the last post you want to quote, click on the "quote" icon instead of the multi-quote icon.

Excellent, that is actually intuitive but I could not comprehend the last step on my own. My apologies to the board for cluttering the thread with extraneous posts due to my lack of knowledge.

You can probably imagine how totally and completely unreliable a conclusion based on anecdotes will be, I'm sure.

Of course, we could have anecdotal threads about every particular flight,on every day of the week and someone could compile these. Over time it might have some statistical validity.

Cheers.

Keep in mind that AA has dozens of PhDs in a bunker underground, along with 50 monkeys in the next room, that have spent years and years analyzing historical buying patterns and what the signals are to help them predict what future buying patterns will be. Their analysis is specific for each flight, day of week, time of year, time of day, etc. And obviously it's dynamic and will change depending on what's going on in the world. So as actual sales for a specific flight start lagging projected sales, they might open up lower class inventory to get bookings back on track. Or they might prefer to keep the fares high, trading off loads for yields. That's where your "45 unsold seats" could come back to bite you. It's really difficult to say what AA will do.

Some of us here can share our "experiences" with you but I don't think in the end it would be all that useful. I've seen fares swing up and down nearly 30% over the course of several days due to both inventory availability changes and actual fare changes.

Sorry we (or I) can't be more helpful.

You can try farecast.com, they've at least taken a stab at putting some more science behind this sort of thing from the outsid.

Many thanks for the reality and the tips. I have tried farecast but since it is not airline specific, it wasn't too helpful. I realize that my mission to save some cash money on this flight may be futile but I have seen ideal itineraries at prices the past few days and am hoping. Thanks again!

Oh, by the way, it's not clear whether or not you subscribe to ExpertFlyer, but if you do, you can use the FlightAlerts to keep an eye out for the deep-discount inventory, it's not just for reward searches. That way if a lower class pops up, you'll know right away.

This seems like the right place to ask this question

I booked flight AA495 DFW HNL October 6 about 3 months ago, and the day I booked it there were no reservable seats left on the flight.

I have been watching inventory and yesterday there were only 6 bookable Y class fares on the flight at $1297 for this segment. I checked in Matrix to see how many could be bought.

Today I had a look at Expert Flyer and there is a load of availability in fare buckets all the way down to N. Basically at least another 50 seats available on the flight.

I still cannot select a seat on the flight though.

Can anyone offer an explanation for this? Has AA decide to chance its hand at selling and extra 50 seats on the flight in the hope that about the same number of people will not turn up? Have about 50 people decided to change to a different flight? Perhaps a large wedding has been cancelled?

Any ideas anyone?

The absence of advance seat assignments should probably be the least of your worries, given the fact that AA 495 is scheduled to fly between MIA-DFW on 06 Oct :).

Availability figures are not cumulative -- please see http://Help.KVSTool.com/#Interpreting

Oooops, I was thinking AA 123 but wrote AA495 (my connection from MIA)

That's a great help thanks, but is there any explanation as to why they'd do that? i.e. sell that seat in full Y yesterday and discounted N today?

Is it just a matter of revenue management and they think it needs to be sold in N a week before the flight?

Currently there are only 2 unassigned coach seats (both preferred plus), but there are 11 unassigned seats in First.

There is a chance coach seats will open up at 96 or 72 hours before the flight, but some should definitely become selectable at exactly 24 hours before the flight.

Last spring I decided to take a last minute weekend trip to Hawaii because my Friday appointment cancelled and AA had an N fare available. Miraculously I was even able to upgrade with stickers as a Gold.

I also flew 123 to Hawaii in coach on Friday and came back in First on Monday and the difference is day and night. If you have a means and have ever considered upgrading an AA flight this flight would be a great choice.

Yes, it is.

Yep. I've been watching DEN-(DFW)-AUS for a while now, with 0 GQONS availability. Q opened up yesterday. Flight load (based on seat map, which I know isn't accurate) is approx 50%. Before that, AA was nearly triple the fare of their nearest competitor.

To clarify, the EXP upgrade window opens 100 hours before the flight, not 96, and EXPs with connections may be upgraded even earlier than that. Also, as you suggest above there are always several seats held back for assignment within 24 hours, either to be sold to interested customers or assigned by the airport.

These monkeys are, further, cousins of the monkeys Fair Isaac Corp. employ to determine if one has a "no limit" credit card (e.g. some AMEX,) and one has used the card, even if one has historically charged $15,000 for tickets, a $200 charge constitutes "100%" of the available credit limit.

Well, maybe not - but AA's "predictive analytics" are not so for us, the great hoi polloi - as much as we try. Good luck to the OP! (Of course, the ones that never return, like Charlie, are those that fall within the APEX restrictions.

Expert Flyer & AA discount codes
 

I' looking to book a flight to Maui in March and am just getting to grips with EF and ow AA's fare buckets work so forgive me if some or all of these questions are silly.

1) Would I be right in thinking that the codes on EF (when searching for a flight) are in decreasing order of cost ie. O & Q are cheaper than S?

2) If I'm right in point 1 why would EF show availability in Q while AA.com only offers S? If I'm wrong then clearly this question is void.

3) How can I tell if a bucket shows zero availability because inventory hasn't been released as opposed to AA having released all their inventory but it's subsequently been sold? (Clearly if I'm looking a few weeks out it's probably safer to assume that inventory is sold out but what if I'm looking 5 months out?)

Thanks in advance for any help.