ExpertFlyer Availability Information
 

I am becoming disillusioned with ExpertFlyer. On several occasions they have shown no availability on my preferred route and I have as a result suggested an alternative itinerary to my corporate travel department. They come back to me with confirmed reservations in what ExpertFlyer showed as no availability. I now view ExpertFlyer as a glorified timetable, but their availability information is not reliable anymore. Do others have similar experiences?

Is there a reason you did not start this thread in the already existing thread completely dedicated to discussing ExpertFlyer? :confused:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...es-thread.html

Regards

I thought it was best placed in travel technology (where I did a search) and did not even think of travelbuzz....

Moderators - please move. Thank you.

I wonder is some of this has to do with entities holding seats as they do hotel rooms. For example, I went to book a room for next summer at the Halekulani hotel on Oahu. Their web site said no rooms of any sort for any day in June or July. I emailed my travel agent who responded back with a choice of rooms for any days I needed in June or July.

I am certain that some airlines do hold back from EF. I observed that AA does for upgrade inventory.

Other possible causes are benefits contained in the corporate contracts with certain airlines, which - like top-tier frequent flyers - may contain inventory overrides.

Our flight availability, in fact all our data, is retrieved in real time from the same global airline reservation systems that travel agents use. The airlines don't know the difference between when we request the inventory versus any other travel agency.

Since you didn't give any specifics on what the flight/date/city pair/point of sale or what special inventory or fares your corporate travel department might have I really can't give an answer. However we know that airlines can and do show different areas of the world different inventory (we are US based). Also your corporate travel department may have access to special fares that are specific to them. None of these things mean we're unreliable, we're showing the same data that any other average US-based travel agent sees and can book tickets from.

If you would like, you can also email the specifics to [email protected]

AA doesn't "hold back" inventory from EF or anyone else. They allow for expanded inventory for EXP's that revenue management releases when you call up and ask for it. In other words, it's a decision that's made when you call, as opposed to pulling from pre-allocated inventory.

My experience is that's not 100% accurate.

I watched - real time - one day as EF was showing F2 X0 A0 as the gate agent cleared 4 upgrades into F. When they cleared #5, EF went to F1/X0/A0. When they cleared #6, it went F0 and there it stayed. The last 3 were Platinum (Person #4 sat next to me on the flight).

I can't see them holding 4 seats as EXP expanded inventory on day of flight.

The gate agent was able to clear 5 upgrades because there were 5 seats available in F. The availability reflected F2 because that's all that AA was technically willing to sell at the time, that has nothing to do with how many upgrade slots were potentially available at the gate, especially when the flight is under airport control.

When a flight is under airport/gate control, the availability numbers in the GDS sometimes aren't updated exactly as you would think. Before that time, additional upgrades beyond what's already allocated in the class codes are up to revenue management.

Paid no-shows. The seats were sold, but the gate agent knew that, with 20 minutes until the doors close, the pax were still over Kansas. Or whatever. There are a bazillion possible reasons. Few, if any, are EF's fault.

IMO - the deeper your understanding of how airline reservations systems actually work, the better you will understand how what Expertflyer.com is showing you is an accurate reflection of what the airline really is making available (to reservation systems).

I understand that, and I understand that what EF is displaying accurately reflects what's available to non-AA sources.

My point was that - like any other GDS system - EF does not necessarily reflect the reality of the inventory that the airline itself has.

For example, UA will not make some inventory available to other airlines for IROPS, but it will sell the inventory either through it's website or in person (even to the point of overbooking if the revenue is high enough). Or UA's blocking of starnet.

Guess it comes down to the term "reliable". For the data available to it, EF is reliable. But it is not "reliable" in terms of what the airline will do internally for it's own purposes.

I'm not smacking on EF here - I use it and find it valuable. It - like any other GDS service - simply doesn't reflect everything available internally to the airline.

Thanks for responding - excellent !

Details:

Lufthansa Business Class to/from Seoul
Expertflyer had everything at zero availability
Travel department confirmed availability and I was offered a choice of seats

And - I asked - Lufthansa is not one of our contract carriers.