BA: Bring back award availability on expertflyer!
 

Hi all,

I just dropped a note to our BA lurkers here that I am very disappointed with BA's decision to pull the display of award availability from expertflyer after such a short period of time.

If you would join me in asking BA to bring back the availability search, sign this thread and show your support.


For discussions, please use this link:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21828029-post68.html

Happy email on Wednesday morning telling me f availability had opened up on my flight next week, quick call to the gch number and away I went.

Ba have freed up two upper deck seats for seat selection costs, and claimed back a buch of miles from me.

Certainly was an appreciated feature. Shame it's been enhanced.

Dear BA, I request the return of Award availability on Expertflyer.

Dear BA, I request the return of Award availability on Expertflyer.

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Dear BA, I request the return of Award availability on Expertflyer.

I think the award availability being published was a mistake/glitch which BA has now rectified.

Personally I think it is a good thing that it is not published, as it makes finding awards slightly more difficult leading to better availability for people who make the effort to find it.

I agree.

Dear BA, Please do not publish availability on ExpertFlyer! :D

I would imagine that very few Avios members are EF subscribers or are even aware of its existence (probably under 1%?) and it could be argued that somebody taking the time to subscribe to EF and setting up alerts is already making an extra effort. Maybe the same could be said for those of us who take the time to read this board. My wife already thinks I spend far too much time on it as it is. ;)

I agree with Nux. BA please leave a level playing field for all Exec Club members and do NOT publish award availability on Expertflyer.

Dear BA,
I use KVS and ExpertFlyer. KVS still has access to display BA award inventory but EF no longer does. Why?
Just because KVS does not allow the setting of alerts?
Long haul premium class availability is dreadful enough without making us all jump through hoops to find the 2 seats per year that are available.
At least you can no longer tell us it's not technically possible.
Thanks,
Taff

ExpertFlyer and KVS operate very differently for finding awards.

ExpertFlyer displays awards as published in the GDS. I believe they also pay to have access to some other award inventory through an agreement with particular airlines (not BA).

KVS 'screen scrapes' either Qantas, BA, JAL or CX websites, parses the information and displays it in a readable format. This is why you enter your QF/BA/JL/CX login details to KVS, because in the background all it does is log in to QF/BA/JL/CX, do a search, and display the results. This is part of the reason why it is an application rather than a web tool.

Hence, unless BA stop publishing award space online (and do not let QF/JL/CX show BA awards online either) then KVS will always work. It is simply an extension of the BA (and QF/JL/CX) award search ability. Although when the BA website is updated, KVS often needs to be updated to work correctly.

KVS does also display GDS availability like ExpertFlyer and pays for this service.

OK, thanks nux. I had been seeing the X0, U0 etc. in the availability displays on KVS recently. Very rarely, one might see a X1 or U1. ;)

So,
Dear BA, I request the return of Award availability on Expertflyer.

+1 Shame they make it harder than it needs to be.

+1

nice of them to turn it off the day after I upgraded my EF subscription and spent an hour setting up alerts...

So it's your fault they switched it off !!! Your real name's not Murphy is it?