metallo

There have certainly been a few negative changes since this switch -- less domestic award upgrade inventory is the most obvious, but as you say, I have also noticed an increase in fares on my routes in J/D/I vs. F/A/P, in addition to a few more subtle changes that relate to how the premium cabin inventories are being managed, particularly around the day of departure, which probably aren't worth detailing here.

However, it's tough for me to tell whether the above changes are all intentional (and they may very well be, as AA mentioned that one of the reasons for the switch was "more granular revenue control") or whether they haven't fully refined everything since the change. My suspicion is that it's a combination of both.

lostfly

I finally was upgraded ...

I was going to call AA once again for my denied upgrade. Just before I checked Expert Flyer, and surprising, there was a change. Now there were 2 seats less on the C inventory. I thought it either was "our" seats (we are 2), or at least the waiting list is finally being processed and somebody ahead of me was already upgraded. Additionally, if I tried to check the reservation online I got an error, it couldn't display the details. Don't know if it was related or not ...

Called and the agent told that I am still on the waiting list, but she checked and told me that yes, there are availability. She wondered why we weren't confirmed already. Asked me to stay on hold for a few minutes. Don't know if she asked her supervisor or if she needed some kind of authorization. But after a few minutes she told me we are confirmed. She said she need to make once more call (for whatever reasons). And finally, after another minute or so she started the normal upgrade procedure.

I asked her why we weren't upgraded automatically. She said that sometimes they have to enter the account and push the upgrade manually. Judge for yourself ...

Interesting detail: The upgrade has been already confirmed and ticketed by now, two hours or so after calling AA. The miles have been already deducted and my card already charged for the copay. However Expert Flyer still shows exactly the same number of seats on the C inventory as I saw just before calling AA. No additional change. So either EF has some kind of cache and is not real time? Or the two seats less that I saw then, before calling, were indeed "our" two seats. So why the agent didn't see that? Would love to know the internal details

imapilotaz

Yes I was told that EF is not a dynamic searching tool, it does the "screen scrapes"/"queries" to the different GDS systems at scheduled intervals and then uses that database for our queries. So you are not seeing live data.

flyerCO

Not been my experience. In fact I use it to watch how many seats left in FC when waiting for elite upgrades. It is always live info when I've queried.

no2chem

That's KVS, not EF.

cova

My experience is that Expert flyer is more accurate than aa.com. AA.com is a third party site. AA agents use AA computers which are not the same as AA.com. AA.com is a portal into AA.

AA.com appears now to be developed by foreign software developers. AA.com tech support is now in the Philippines. When you get transferred to tech support from an AA agent you always get the foreign support desk.

AA agents always say - don't go by aa.com, they go by AA computers. Way too many issues with AA.com with seat maps not showing correctly, etc.

In addition when I find award inventory on Expert Flyer it is more accurate than what AA.com shows. And the agents sees what Expert Flyer shows, not what AA.com shows.

Trust EF - always accurate. Ignore AA.com.

JonNYC

I'd say RM automatically released more -C- instantly and automatically in this instance.

Correct.

Weird.

ExpertFlyer Voice

ExpertFlyer does not cache any of our data, it is retrieved in real time from the reservation systems. We pay for access to that data, it is not scraped.

No



Thank you! AA.com uses a cached copy of AA's inventory, which is why they are able to do month long searches and return many flight options. The trade off is that it may not be perfectly up to date. ExpertFlyer retrieves the inventory in real time from the reservation system.

Agreed, that's the most likely scenario.

cova

Why is that weird?

Have you been transferred to the Foreign AA tech support. The folks there speak poor English and don't know as much about AA.com features than I do. They don't appear to very technically savvy, even when you speak to a supervisor. Question - are these the same people that are now the software developers of AA.com?

In the past, AA.com tech support was in the US and you got a very knowledgeable person.

Marriott fired its US based software team (I know one of them) and shipped its software development overseas. I suspect AA has done the same.

A few days ago I redeemed a Qantas domestic reward for 2. The flight I wanted showed on Expert Flyer. It did not show on AA.com. When I call AA EXP line the agent said she only saw 1 not 2 award seats. When I said I saw 2 on Expert Flyer, she looked again and then saw the 2 seats and booked the tickets for me.

Hence, AA.com was not accurate, EF was, and after searching, AA EXP line saw the 2 seats.

JonNYC

And, more importantly, thanks as always for being so involved and responsive when questions about how EF functions, etc. come up! ^

anabolism

My guess is that the waitlist was processed for at least some requests. Why not yours? I don't know. Maybe AA has some new policy where miles+copay requests aren't done automatically? Getting an error when attempting to view your itinerary on AA.com can mean that your upgrade cleared, and that would have been my guess except that the agent said you hadn't been.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the normal upgrade procedure." In my experience, the normal upgrade procedure is that the phone agent confirms you in the upgraded inventory, then puts you on hold while he or she calls the tariff desk to update the price quote (they have to show the original ticket cost plus the extra cost of the upgrade, or in the case of a SWU, no extra cost). Once the updated price quote is stored, the agent queues it to the ticketing desk, and tells you you should receive email within some hours. I'm not sure why there were two phone calls in this case.

lostfly

Yep. Second that. They are being very helpful! And I am sorry for doubting if their data was always real time

Interesting, didn't occur to me that possibility. But let me post the details so you the experts might be able to have a better idea of what could have happened.

Booked this about a month ago, C inventory was 0 and we were waitlisted for the miles+copay upgrade. Since last week EF shows C4. But as the subject of the thread, called AA a few times and they claimed no availability. Yesterday EF showed C2. Called and I was still on waiting. But now agent said she sees C2, and finally she confirmed us and upgraded us. Yet after the upgrade and even now, EF still shows C2.

So if our upgrade took those two places that I was seeing as C2, and inventory didn't change because RM added two additional C seats automatically, that would mean that the previous change from C4 to C2 is because somebody ahead of us on the waiting list was upgraded, right?

However, I don't see any changes on the seatmap for that upgrade. I grabbed a screenshot of the seatmap when inventory was at C4. And comparing with the current seatmap, not a single seat (except ours) on coach was freed. All the seats that were assigned on MCE, preferred or even bare main cabin, are still assigned. Again, except our own seats, of course. I know that this doesn't proof that there wasn't any previous upgrade. But I guess it makes it unlikely?

lostfly

This was a miles+copay upgrade. By "normal upgrade procedure" I meant what would have happened if the upgrade was already confirmed. Assign new seats, charge the miles and finally ask my credit card details for the copay payment.

anabolism

It's hard for us on the outside to know. Multiple possibilities:

1. You two were the only ones on the waitlist, which was finally processed, so your upgrades cleared from C4, reducing availability to C2. Agent saw your old Y segments and didn't notice that your J segments had changed from waitlisted to confirmed.
2. AA RM algorithm reduced C availability from 4 to 2. You called in, were confirmed, reducing C to 0, but then RM algorithm increased it back to C2.
3. The waitlist wasn't automatically processed, but two people called in and were confirmed, reducing C from 4 to 2. Then you called in, were also confirmed, reducing C to 0, but then AA RM algorithm increased it back to 2.
4. The waitlist was automatically processed, but only for two people ahead of you, who were confirmed, reducing C from 4 to 2. Then you called in, were also confirmed, reducing C to 0, but then AA RM algorithm increased it back to 2.
5. There's some new mechanism in place so that lower-priority elites aren't automatically cleared from the waitlist.
6. There's a new policy that agents aren't supposed to confirm people into C/A when there's a waitlist. That's why your previous calls when there was C4 were rejected. If there is such a policy, it's presumably to close the "EF loophole" so people don't jump the queue.

lostfly

Thanks, and it is back to C4 now.