Expertflyer wrong on D class availability?
 

Hi,
I've been looking for D class upgrades on some upcoming trips and set up Upgrade Alerts in Expert Flyer. I got an alert for one of them, checked on EF and it showed 3 seats in D (I need 2), tried to upgrade online but got "no seats" available, called Emirates and they confirmed this.

I'm pretty new at this, is this a regular occurrence? I did check EF, still showing 3 available. I also triple checked I've got the right dates, flight numbers etc.

Many Thanks,

Mike

Is your reservation part of a married segment it might be because of that and you need D on all sectors to be available?

Emirates frequently has availability display issues in Sabre. Since Expertflyer uses Sabre, it's not unusual to see this.

ExpertFlyer uses multiple GDSs. EK shows different availability to different point of sales. Since ExpertFlyer is based in a USA point of sale, the award availability will match the USA EK call center or website. Or it could be a married segment logic issue as well.

In my view, expertflyer has become increasingly useless for EK and EY. Especially in situations of critical availability (0, 1 or 2) I have found discrepancies between expertflyer results and every sales channel EK / EY use. It is always a lottery (which can work in both directions, but is mostly worse in reality than what expertflyer shows as results).

It would be helpful to have a button on the expertflyer page that connects me to an online travel agency that sells me exactly what I see on the expertflyer results page. I am really tired of finding space on expertflyer and having no luck in finding that seat on ANY EK channel (online, phone, travel agent, whatever ...).

By the way, the same is true about the fare listings. Often the fares shown on expertflyer are not actually loaded in travel agents' reservations systems, although nothing in the terms & conditions fineprint restricts them (no POS restrictions or else).

I have not had issues with fares being listed but not existing

With some fares ( e.g. CBR-LON ) that I have tried to book, it has been difficult with the agents having issues with the journey starting from a place where EK doesn't fly to but the fare has actually been valid

I just got an email alert from EF indicating D class availability. I log in at it shows D 7. I try and upgrade online on EK.com and guess what not available, I call EK CS and they confirm the same !

Single leg direct flight btw

Thanks for clarifying on the GDS front. However, the point about the availability issue still remains. Querying EK availability normally and via direct connect frequently produces different results. POS does not matter in this regard.

If you can give us a specific example we can look as we have the ability to query the inventory both via the GDS and via direct connect. However we have not seen differences in availability based on the GDS used (we have access to 3 of them) which is separate from if direct connect is used or not.

Seeing false positive D on EF now as well

I'm a relative beginner when it comes to Emirates upgrades and Expertflyer. Perhaps someone can help me out.

I am flying DXB-MEL next month on EK408. It's a flex Y ticket and when I checked a few days ago the EK website showed availability. I wanted to do the upgrade there and then, but was waiting for some miles to be credited from a flight 5 days prior (what's wrong with Emirates?). When the miles finally came through, after a complaint to Skywards, guess what. Your guess was correct, the availability had disappeared.

When I look at Expertflyer it shows D0 and I7. What does this mean as far as my desired upgrade is concerned? And is it true that people booking from Australia (like me) are less likely to see upgrade availability than someone booking from the USA or elsewhere?

Have they perhaps changed the fare bucket for upgrades?

I checked with EK and the buckets are still the same - D (as in Delta) is the upgrade fare bucket, I (as in India) is award bucket.

I recently made the same experience for award tickets (both I and D inventory). Expertflyer inconsistent with Emirates website which again was inconsistent with Emirates call centre.

As stated in our last post, we have multiple ways of getting this data, so if you can email us specific flight information that you believe to be inaccurate we can look at our other data sources. Thanks.