CLG

Yes, the query started returning correct results about 6-7 hours after my original post here. I've reset my flight alerts accordingly.

Thanks for the email address link, I didn't realize that there was a quicker avenue for questions/concerns.

CLG

IMH

It's quicker if ExpertFlyer Voice is awake and reading email, but it's by no means unheard of for the collective wisdom of thread subscribers to deliver faster responses.

For questions of a general nature askers are also doing everyone a favour, by helping build this thread as a resource which answers many queries without people ever needing to either post them here or email EF customer support.

Calchas

Airlines use the IATA-mandated rate of exchange (IROE) and not the market spot rate for currency conversions. IATA's interbank rate is based on an average rate observed over a period of five working days taken up until the 10th of each month. This is to ensure that sub-weekly spikes in the currency do not unfairly affect the price, because inter-airline and travel agent clearing does not happen immediately but rather is deferred. The rate calculation is available for purchase here: http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/iroe.aspx

Unfortunately I do not have access to the IATA rate. But looking at the rough market spot rate back on the 5th-10th of May, that conversion (67880 ZAR = 4410 USD) looks about right. Actually, that is not very different from the rate at the moment, 67880 is 4343 USD. Whoever is offering you over 5500 USD for 67880 ZAR, sell your ZAR now and worry about airline tickets later!

The 0 ZAR rate is a known bug in the fare distribution system, as far as I can tell it is an integer overflow. Unfortunately you just have to ignore it.

It is not necessary to price your *ONEx itinerary in the local currency, it is only necessary that an office in the country of origin sell the fare. If they wish to price it in USD under the IATA-mandated conversion rate, instead of in the local currency, that is up to them.

dkerr

In my experience the fares quoted by ExpertFlyer do not include various taxes and fees, notably the YQ and similar fuel or "carrier imposed" surcharges. This may explain why the fare you see from EF is not the same as fare when you actually try and purchase.

DAK

shipitfish

Is there a way on Expertflyer to set an alert for when a seat is filled? It seems this would be oft-wanted: being notified if the seat next to the one you selected has been filled.

Calchas

The ExpertFlyer fare search does not include anything that goes into the taxes and fees box on the ticket, including the YQ and YR accounting lines. Those are not part of the fare price, but only part of the ticket price.

The taxes and fees calculations (including YQ and YR) are dependent on factors beyond the fare calculation (such as the route or airports used) so it would not be possible for EF to display them anyway in the "fare" search. [There is an option for "include fuel surcharge" or something, but it doesn't work for most airlines.]

bruinflyer

I've got a Y-class fare on TK that's 4 segments long. I've got plenty of miles in my Aeroplan account. I've managed to easily upgrade 3 of the 4 segments from Economy to Business class using miles from the Aeroplan.com web tool. Unfortunately the fourth segment is giving me trouble for some reason. I'm getting a fairly clear, "inventory not available" message from the Aeroplan tool.

My ExpertFlyer account shows "4" available in J-class for all my segments (I think that's the max they'll show for some reason, because my first three segments showed 4 available both before and after I did my upgrade, which consumed 2 seats).

So my question is; how accurate is ExpertFlyer with this kind of inventory? I've checked multiple times over the course of about 36 hours. Is it a glitch?

armouredant

Based on this page, I think TK books business class awards into I class (which could also deplete J inventory if there weren't many seats in that cabin left, I guess).

bruinflyer

That's good to know, but I'm still curious about how accurate EF's data is. The biz cabin is reasonable free (9 of 30 taken) and has C, D, J and O available (now, I class is zero, but it was also zero on the other three segments I booked, before I booked my J upgrades).

Any further data to be had out there? Thanks again!

747FC

Have you received an eticket confirmation on your booked and upgraded itinerary?

bruinflyer

It's a mix: I got an email from my travel agent with details and my eticket number and original Y class. The Aeroplan website confirmed my 3 upgrades, but I never got any further email confirmation. I was able to go into TK website and select seats for one of my biz class segments but their site is fairly broken and won't let me select seats for the other segments (regardless of cabin).

Is there anything specific I should be looking for?

Note that I'm interested in my particular situation but I tried to ask a generic question to help add value to the community. The generic answer is still useful to post here, even if there's a workaround for me.

ExpertFlyer Voice

ExpertFlyer data is the same as your travel agent sees, it's from the same source.

Seat maps are not an indicator of ticket availability (award/upgrade availability especially) as you can have sold tickets with unassigned seats, among other things.

bruinflyer

To add a bit more data here the TK website shows I'm in I-class nows for the segments that properly got upgraded. My remaining economy segment is still Y-class.

Apologies I didn't mean to imply the simplistic approach "hey there are seats in biz class why can't I upgrade to one?!?!?" I instead just meant to address the earlier general comment that it might be filling up (I don't believe it really is). To reiterate the reason I'm curious: I used aeroplan.com to upgrade a Y-Class with miles to biz while EF showed J=4, I=0 on one segment and was unable to perform the same upgrade on the symmetric segment (literally the return leg of the same flight a few days later with the same plane, exact same number of booked seats in a code-by-code comparison).

Unfortunately the flights no longer look the same (which makes sense, since I've taken a few of the J-or-I seats).

bruinflyer

My reading agrees with yours. I think the EF sync that shows J=4 right now is a red herring and I likely booked I-class and EF just happened to be incorrectly showing I=0 when in fact it was available.

Globaliser

Or, possibly, might there have been POS differences? A bit of poking around can sometimes illustrate how real those differences can be, if you switch between US and UK POS displays for a particular flight.