gospelle

That should read "337 days in advance".
Error message reads: Class Code I: The date specified is too far into the future and not supported by the airline. Please specify a date within 337 days of today.
But of course, it says this on airlines that release award seats well beyond that. WHY? Anyone??

IMH

You went some way towards answering your question when you first posed it. For some *A airlines (definitely SQ and I believe also NH), if you use EF to look for availability it will give you *A availability, which will often mean fewer options than are available to members of the airlines' own FFPs. In other cases (LX at one point, IIRC) you will see the availability seen by regular members of the airline's FFP.

A search will bring up some threads on this, mainly from 2013-2015.

EF can be helpful when looking for *A availability, but it's not one of its real strengths.

Globaliser

A quick question about Aircraft Change Alerts, both to find out what recent experience other EF users have had and to see whether ExpertFlyer Voice might be able to shed some light on this.

On 29 February 2016, an announcement was made in the Master Information Thread:-However, recently I haven't been receiving the alerts I would have expected to get when a configuration has changed.

In particular, I've noticed this on BA shorthaul flights, where there is a moveable divider between business class and economy, so those cabins can grow or shrink if the divider moves. On 3-3 aircraft, business class is 2-2, so this ought to look like a configuration change; although on 2-2 aircraft (Embraers), both business class and economy are 2-2 and it is just the number of rows in each cabin that changes. If the aircraft type doesn't change, then the total number of rows stays the same if all that's happened is that the divider has moved.

Has there been a change in EF behaviour? Is this type of Aircraft Change Alert still supposed to be functioning? What have other EF users seen?

ExpertFlyer Voice

There has been no change and it would be helpful if you emailed us directly so we could look up your account and alert to see a specific example.

pone66

Is there any service that competes with ExpertFlyer that also offers seat maps, similar to what ExpertFlyer offers under "Seat Alerts"?

I fly maybe five times a year, so paying them $60 for seat maps is unattractive to me. I would be willing to part with about $10 for a limited number of seat searches per day.

The other thing is I hate the way ExpertFlyer implemented their feature. I do not want a seat alert. I want a way to investigating seat availability whenever I feel like it. You cannot create a SeatAlert without creating an email notification when specific criteria (e.g., a window seat in business class) are met.

ExpertFlyer Voice

If you only need the service 5 months out of the year you can only subscribe for those 5 months. Just set your account not to renew immediately after you reactivate your subscription.

Retrieving the seat maps has a cost for us to provide. So if you feel that looking at a Seat Map on ExpertFlyer, which you can do separately from Seat Alerts, holds value to you over the free alternative of an airline website, then maybe it's worth paying for.

IMH

That sounds like a standard EF seat map query for a particular flight and date, which you can save and then repeat at any time by selecting it from a drop-down list. Saving queries doesn't generate any emails.

pone66

Is that query feature you reference something that is only exposed to a paying account? On my "free" menu I only see alerts.

IMH

I believe so, yes. You can explore what EF offers with a free trial subscription -- just don't start the very short test period (five days) until you know you'll have time to 'play' a little.

Globaliser

Thanks for the confirmation about this.

kross123

Is there a way to setup a flight alert for an airline that has not posted up their christmas schedule? I am trying to book a flight to Hawaii around Christmas on westjet but they have not released their flights. I was hoping to use expert flyer for notifications the second the flights are available.

I have a pro membership but recieve error messages anytime I try to set this up.

ExpertFlyer Voice

Correct you can't create an alert for a flight that doesn't exist yet.

tbrein

I booked a flight through AMEX travel using points. Today I was notified that the flight schedule changed by AMEX. I then checked the Delta website to confirm the change. I went back over my emails to make sure I didn't miss the alert from EF informing me of the schedule change. There was none. The EF website Is still showing the old schedule for the flight DL 1664 on Oct. 20, 2020.

Globaliser

Have you tried other sources to see what the current schedule of the flight actually is? It would be odd for a GDS to show different departure and arrival times from those displayed by the operating airline, and AIUI EF shows information pulled live from a GDS.

The other thing that I wonder is whether there's been some glitch caused by the fact that DL1664 appears to operate both JFK-JAX and JAX-JFK - has something got confused about the directionality?

oruvin

Something weird happening with EF.

Award availability CUN-LGW Jan 2021 shows as 0 every day, no alerts arrived, but in fact, there are lots available. Paying a premium for what?

Expertflyer website - 0 available, Rewardflightfinder website - flights available, BA website - flights available, BA call - flights available.