mo' data, mo' problems
 

Patience, please. I'm new here!

On my last day of free trial of Expert Flyer and I see lots of interesting data - M fares with Z availability and even the magical S available on flights that I want...

BUT I cannot for the life of me cause them to come up on delta.com (or 3rd party booking sites). If I advanced search for M or higher, I always get B; search for S and get at least I - and usually higher than that.

Have played with searches, dates, routings, etc (you know - the way you'd do it *without* all the insight!) and can't get a hit.

Is there some trick to getting DL to sell me the seat that EF tells me is available?

Call the DM line and have them do it for you.

Really? That simple? I have asked for fares before (of course without seeing availability like I can with FT) but it's never worked - they just quote me the same thing I can pull up online.

I'll give it a try.

+1 - I've never had a problem getting fare class quotes from the DM line. :)

You need to have a fare available to go with the seat availability. Are there published M or S fares for your route and date?

Ah! Now I think we're getting somewhere!

My flight: DL260 MIA-LHR 01NOV shows:

On the Upgrade / Award page:

Z4

and on the Flight Availability page:

J9 C9 D9 I9 S8 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q8 K4 L0 U0 T0 E0

(there's my S and M - so to speak)

but no S or M on the Fare Information Results page.

So I guess I now have a EF usability question... do you really have to go through all that or is there a simpler way?

Asking for an M fare on delta.com gave you Delta's lowest M fare or higher, an upgrade-eligible fare. EF confirmed the Z bucket availability. A call to Delta handles the booking and upgrade confirmation.

The mistake of looking at fare buckets without coordinating fare rules is pretty common, but, frankly, delta.com eliminates that problem.

Thanks all. Slow learner, but I'll get there!

useful tips.

I have a question related to EF too.

When looking up D class (SM J class award redemption ticket) availability on KE for several different dates, I always show that that class doesn't exist.

Does EF not have access to KE D class information or was I really out of luck in choosing dates?

PS: I made sure I chose non-blackout dates.