I was told there is a site (amex?) where you can do a real time check on how many first and business class seats are available on a flight that are not yet sold so that you can maximize your chances of an upgrade by selecting a flight with lots of unsold first class seats. Where is this site? Thanks!

Welcome to FlyerTalk

You might be thinking of http://www.itn.net. With user settings in expert mode, it will show you seats available per fare class, generally up to a maximum 7-9 per fare class. Aside from this, some airline web sites also show seat availaibilty (AA does). You might consider a post on the particular airline forum that interests you and see what people are doing there.

Try my own http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/...ravel/galileo/ .

Links at the bottom of that page will point you to helpful threads (explaining data interpretation) for selected major airlines but, better yet, take Tom's advice and read the specific forum of the airline at issue.

TOM911,

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You don't know how many times I have asked how to get the ITN site to show the seats...Expert in My Account settings....

Thanks so much guys!!!!

This just helped me to snag much better seats on an quickly-upcoming, non-upgradable transatlantic flight. It provides a much better way to see real-time data than to rely on busy airline agents looking up availability (via phone calls each day) to check on any shifts in seats.

Using the ITN.net website, I was able to call and say "looks like 13A and B opened up, can you move me?" The agent pushed the buttons and bam, the change was made! Now there's no need to arrive at the airport to check in so many hours early (in order to avoid a horrid flight in bad seats) -- finding a better seat just got a lot easier.

I appreciate your insights.

Hello Tom,

I only know F is first class, C is business and Y is full fare economy. Can you please show me how to interpret the other codes? Is there a website for this info?

Thank you!

There is a list for United. I do not know about other airlines, but there may be listings here.

While what you mentioned above about F, C, and Y is generally true, on DL and AA business class is 'J' and not 'C'. On AA and UA, first class on transcon routes are listed as "P" instead of "F". There are other common codes used across carriers: B, M and H tend to be fuller-fare/less-restricted economy classes.

Fare availability is generally listed by class-of-service, and then by decreasing price/increased restrictions. You can generally get an idea of what's available, using some of the above codes as breakpoints, as a sample listing for NYC-LAX availability on the 4 carriers who serve it direct shows:

JFK LAX 0825 1137 DL 45 J7 D3 I1 Y7 B7 M7 H7 Q7 K7 L7

JFK LAX 0800 1114 AA 33 P1 J7 Y7 B7 H7 M7 K7 V7 Q7 L7

JFK LAX 0700 1008 UA 897 P9 C9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 V9 W9 T9

EWR LAX 0900 1213 CO1402 A4 D0 F0 Y9 H9 K9 B9 V9 Q9 T9

I THINK YOUR SITE IS GREAT!!!

I do, too! THANK YOU! for putting it all together in English and for posting it.

It is far superior in both speed and content to itn.com, especially in that I get the specific airline schedules I ask for. I'll probably never use itn.com to check availability ever again, thanks to your system.

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[This message has been edited by scruffy (edited 07-27-2003).]