I have just signed up to expertflyer, in the hope it might help me find some low-level awards for transatlantic summer travel. For next year.

I put in a test query, and for a particular flight from CDG to ATL, it appears to show 9 economy awards available 331 days out. At least I think that's what it's saying:

code = X, seats = 9

Delta's website certainly doesn't show this flight available, but if I were to phone the Skymiles number, would the reps be able to see these seats ... and let me book some?!

Fare class X should be deep discount coach. EF shows upgrade seats but not award seats on DL flights. I think N is coach award inventory now.

I'm so sorry -- I forgot to mention that the flight in question is with Air France.

That makes a big difference. On EF, sre you looking under award and upgrade inventory--the first choice on the left--or further down for fare class availability? If you see lots of letters followed by small numbers, I suspect the latter, but if you see A and maybe even O, and sadly nothing at all for lots of flights, you're in the right area.

I am indeed using that first button: award and upgrade inventory. Should I be using the fare class availability instead?

No, award and upgrade inventory is right if you want a "free" ticket.

Fare class availability shows how many seats AF is willing to sell in various fare code categories.

If you can find "low" award seats on AF for flights and dates you want, it might be a good idea to grab the space now, before it disappears and you can find nothing. However, unless you're DM or PM with DL, the change/cancel/redeposit fee is $150 per ticket.

Thank you very much for taking the time to help me. I'm actually doing a bit of research to see how this all works -- my dates won't open for another couple of weeks.

I really appreciate your advice.

Use Award Nexus. It's free for FT members.

As expert flyer is unable to find DL award availability, I'm not a member.

For free, you might be able to use www.alaskaair.com to find AF, KL and DL award. Even if you find it available at Alaska airlines, DL might still block you from using your DL miles at lower level, but generally, if Alaska airlines can see and book it, it's available for low level.

I subscribe to KVS which is quite useful.

Jiburi

FWIW, I find value in using EF to look for availability on USA-Europe tickets during the summer.

If you have flexibility, in the summer you can try and buy when the planes are mostly full--if you're Diamond this translates into a good Op-up percentage.

Fast question - I currently use Expert Flyer to find international award tix and most of my mileage is Delta. Meaning, I look for AF on EFlyer; then look for Delta awards (segment at a time) on Delta.com. Is KVS going to serve my needs better ??

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I've been trying out Award Nexus, and I like how it works. But it does prompt the same question: if I see seats available on a particular flight, will Delta reps see it, too? If EF shows 9 seats available for a particular flight, can I hope that 2 of them might be made available for Delta passengers?

I don't know about Award Nexus, but when EF shows availability in the right code, it's supposed to be inventory that is available to SkyTeam partners, not just for FB miles.

OTOH, the same does not seem to be true for KLM: EF and even delta.dumb can show TATL availability on KLM operated flights, such as AMS-ORD, but DL agents either cannot see it or cannot book it, even when they claim to try doing a long sell. Trying to book these award tickets using a KLM segment directly on delta.dumb results in repeated error messages.

If Award Nexus, KVS, etc. are getting their award availability data directly from the AF website, that presumably includes all seats available for FB miles, some or all of which might not be available using DL or other partner miles. (There might be additional AF award inventory available only to FB elites when they are logged into their FF accounts, for example IFC award seats.) My understanding is that when you see 9 (low) award seats in the correct inventory class for AF flights on EF, they should be seats that AF is willing to make available for partners. Of course, there could still be a question whether DL is willing to let you use (low necessarily) miles to get those award tickets.

This phenomena became known as *Net blocking when UA was doing this: not allowing UA customers to use UA miles for partner flights that their partners were willing to make available to UA and other *A FF programs. I'm not aware that DL has ever been credibly accused of doing this. IMO the evidence is that they did not do this for SQ award tickets, even at the very end of that bilateral partnership.

Out of the two, only the KVS Tool has complete SkyTeam Award Availability Coverage:
http://Help.KVSTool.com/#AwardUpgradeClasses_SkyTeam

Actually, the KVS Tool has multiple sources and supports both types of AF Award Availability: The more limited subset that is available to all SkyTeam partners (incl. DL), as well as the expanded Award Availability for FB members (both Regular and Elite).