jjLDNY

Having first subscribed for RewardFlightFinder, which solved my need for tracking reward seats, I then had a challenge of trying to spot Club Suites, and needing to use ExpertFlyer to check 777's. I'm now in a place where I have both.

So, from what I can tell:

RewardFlightFinder
- Just used for Reward Flights
- Allows for a range to be used rather than a date (+-3 days)
- Very user friendly

ExpertFlyer
- Can track Reward Flights
- Can track seat plans
- Can track prices
- Can track a bunch of other stuff....
- Slightly more restrictive on date ranges (only has +-3 days rather than a 'anything between')
- Not very user friendly

Am I mistaken on the +-3 days restriction on EF? Otherwise, I see no reason to have both. The user friendly aspect is a short term issue, as it's no way worse than using the matrix.

Thoughts from anyone who has both, or has decided on 1 appreciated.

IMH

I recently paid my 13th annual EF subscription and wouldn't miss it. It could be more user-friendly, as you say. It hasn't really changed visually in all the years I've used it (which is not entirely a bad thing). In addition to finding award space, I can set alerts that do several useful things I can't easily do elsewhere, including often (but not always) telling me about schedule changes and aircraft changes before the airline or TA.

RFF does one thing, for one airline, and does it in a straifghtforward and friendly way. I only very recently started paying for it, in addition to EF, because it scans for open award space much more frequently than EF. I'm not sure how likely it is that I'll remain a subscriber.

Globaliser

EF alerts are set for specific flights, which is more useful than the generic "all flights in a day" results returned by RFF because often there is only one specific flight that will work for me.

EF doesn't allow you to set a +/- 3 days alert. The +/- 3 days limitation on EF is simply so that any availability display shows you a maximum of one calendar week at a time, and any alert you set is for one specific flight. You can keep querying EF around the dates that you're interested in to get a bigger availability picture if you want, but I don't often do this. When I get a results screen from RFF, 95%+ of what it shows is usually of no interest to me whatsoever, so the +/- 3 days limitation isn't a real problem for me. As often as not, I am querying EF only for one specific day in any event.

EF availability is also queried and returned in real time, whereas RFF's data source is cached or lags. I was (unhappily) testing this on a recent occasion when I was trying to book two separate UuA bookings, and others managed to book 6 of the 7 originally-available award seats from under me, so that I ended up one short. EF correctly told me instantly what the current position was at any particular time; RFF kept telling that there was availability even after the bookings were done and dusted.

In any case, I use EF to do pretty much all of the other things it does in addition to award flights. RFF simply doesn't do the other things at all - non-award seat availability, flight information, timetables, flight status, "less than X" availability alerts, alerts for airlines other than BA and VS, seat alerts, schedule change alerts, etc etc. If you use these functions, the cost of EF is much better value than the amount paid to RFF to do one thing and one thing only.

wanderingjock

i use both. EF for a whole host of things - and RFF has been invaluable recently in finding better reward flights (changed twice due to new availability) on a DBX trip in March. The cost of the two nights that we now dont need a hotel in DBX, has more than paid for the subscription for a few years!

jjLDNY

Very useful and detailed reviews thank you all.

This was what I was expecting to hear, and as I thought to mysef when subscribing first to RFF; "If this finds me a good flight I will save £100/0s".

My initial plan when buying RFF was to use it across the year to help my useless self use my 2-4-1s in F somewhere nice, for these I'm not too fussed on dates so the wide range is fine. For EF, it'll be more for work travel, and ensuring good seats when flexible, so, I think, I will keep both.

In the meantime, I have just started with EF so I may find that when I'm used to it I can recreate similar RFF functionality, but for £5 or so, I don't think it's worth the time of setting multiple searches for multiple destinations and dates.

mmxbreaks

I dip in and out of EF, based on how much I need to know and when. I had a lot of flights booked in months gone and was waiting for various classes to open for joker usage, or wanted to know window seat availability on one flight, etc. It's all about the specifics. Now those flights are done, I've unsubscribed. When I have more flights with unknowns in the future, I'll sign back up for the £8/month. I like the flexibility.
RFF I use to get a broad view of something and the availability, then go to BA.com and search out what it's telling me in more detail. It's non-specific, therefore, but handy. See no reason to sign up for it, though, as I could just set a volume of specific alerts in pay-for EF if I wanted.