truthknown

1 - Yes

2 - That shouldnt be the case. If Q shows availability, it should show on AA.com for sale. If it doesn't, that could mean that it was sold or the availability was adjusted during the time it took you to look at EF and then look at AA.com. This is entirely possible.

3 - You can't. Inventory closings are made for numerous reasons. Looking at EF will not give you any guidance as to why an inventory has closed. Selling all the available seats in the inventory is clearly the most common reason for an inventory closing though.

truthknown

Monkeys in a room next to the PhDs... LMAO! I will make sure to stop by the PhDs and ask them to see the room of monkeys! I am sure they will get a kick out of this, or get highly insulted...

So the PhDs come up with the science behind the models that make decisions on flight inventory closings, but many times the analysts in Revenue Management will override the decisions made by the models. It's usually done for situations that the models cannot accurately predict.

As for inventories opening up as the day of departure comes, it is true that inventories can open up over time. It depends on how well the flight is booking. A flight that is booking poorly will have lower inventories opened over time based on how the yield manager has set it to open.

Im glad to answer any questions I can on the topic, let me know.

ckpeter

There could be another explanation, which is that a fare for that code has not been published or that some condition prevent you from buying that fare.

For example, AA may publishes only an S fare, so you can only buy an S fare, even though the flight has Q inventory. Alternatively, it may be that all the Q fares have 21 days advance purchase requirement, so within 7 days of departure, you will not be able to buy a Q-coded ticket, even though the flight has Q inventory available.

ijgordon

Generally, but not always.

ExpertFlyer 101 - you should read the FAQ/help there. Because there is no published S fare on your routing valid for your itinerary. Not only does there have to be a published S fare, but you have to meet the advance purchase, minimum stay, day-of-week and any other requirements of the fare in order to book it. You can look at the available fares on Expertflyer. If you uncheck the validate box it will show you all fares for your travel dates and you can see if there is a cheaper fare class coming up, but then you'll have to read and process the rules to understand why aa.com is not pricing that fare for your itinerary.

You can't, and it doesn't matter. Inventory comes and goes like the wind depending on what the monkeys do. You can set EF alerts to monitor a specific booking class if you know there's a cheaper published fare. I've definitely saved money by doing this. But it can be risky too because the cheaper inventory may never come back and/or they may pull the lower fare depending on how the flight sells, among other things. Works best many months out when a flight looks empty but they're only selling higher fare classes.