Quick Take
Looking for two saver biz from LAX to BEY sometime in the fall. Would like a 1 stop award on LH or TK. Expert Flyer doesn't even show 1 stop flights with zero availability.

I just signed up for a pro subscription, and I'm trying to figure some things out. I noticed that on United.com, LH and TK Partner Business award availability is limited to at least 2 stops now. I realize that they're stingy with Award space from LAX, but I can't even set up an alert for 1 stop award availability.

Am I doing it wrong, or should I be creating a flight alert and not an award alert?

I'm happy to provide more details if needed. I'm not opposed to flying biz to IST, ZHR, FRA, or VIE, then just flying economy to BEY.

EF showed Iberia award availability when I searched for it a couple of weeks ago, and it matched what was actually possible to book on AA.com.

For some Star Alliance airlines a flight may not be shown if there is no award availability in any cabin for the flight. You can still create a Flight Alert for the flight from the results page of the Flight Availability search or via the Create New Flight Alert page. The award alert is the Flight Alert.

There is probably a simple explanation that I have overlooked but, on a forthcoming KLM flight, I am getting a very different availability seatmap from EF than I am from the KL website itself.
The flight concerned is flight KL887 from AMS to HKG on April 3rd in business.
KL tells me that only 2 seats are still available (6G and 6K) whereas EF tells me that, in addition to these two, there are also another 8 seats free (2DGHK, 3AGH and 4A).

Hi Nick. The ExpertFlyer seat map is correct, those seats are not currently reserved by any passenger. The seat map we show is what is returned to any travel agent via the global reservation systems, so you should call KLM and ask why you can't reserve those unoccupied seats.

Thanks but other Skyteam airlines (such as MEA) show a seatmap that accords with that of KLM and so does Expedia.com (except for one seat). Clearly, Skyteam airlines and Expedia, etc.. pull their seat availability map from somewhere else than EF does. I am not sure what it means to say that EF seatmap is "correct" if it shows seats as available which are seemingly in fact not available to passengers. EF seatmap no doubt reflects the feed that it receives. It does not necessarily follow from this that this feed is "correct" in the sense of reflecting the reality of seats available to passengers.

In any event, we clearly have a discrepancy for which there is at present no explanation.

No, there is no discrepancy. Those seats are available, you are just blocked from reserving them. Here is why:

When the seat map is requested in C class (full fare Business):
4G*KL887C3APRAMSHKG�
AUTH-320 772
0 - AMS 1 - HKG
NO SMOKING FLIGHT

GAL GAL GAL GAL GAL GAL
LAV LAV
A C D G H K
1 . . . . . . 1
2 . . * * * * 2
3 * . . * * . 3
4 * . . . . . 4
5 . . . . GAL GAL 5
GAL GAL GAL GAL
LAV LAV
6 . . . * B . * 6
A C D G H K

AVAIL NO SMK: * BLOCK : / LEAST PREF: U BULKHEAD: BHD
AVAIL SMKING: - PREMIUM: Q UPPER DECK: J EXIT ROW: X
SEAT TAKEN: . WING: W PAID: P LAVATORY: LAV GALLEY:GAL BED:S
PREF ACCESS LAV: PAL DOOR: DOR SCREEN: SCR CLOSET: CLS
PREF ACCESS:H BASSINET:B LEGROOM:L UMNR:M REARFACE:@

When it is requested in D class (Discount Business):

4G*KL887D3APRAMSHKG�
AUTH-320 772
0 - AMS 1 - HKG
NO SMOKING FLIGHT

GAL GAL GAL GAL GAL GAL
LAV LAV
A C D G H K
1 . . . . . . 1
2 . . / / / / 2
3 / . . / / . 3
4 * . . . . . 4
5 . . . . GAL GAL 5
GAL GAL GAL GAL
LAV LAV

6 . . . * B . * 6
A C D G H K

AVAIL NO SMK: * BLOCK : / LEAST PREF: U BULKHEAD: BHD
AVAIL SMKING: - PREMIUM: Q UPPER DECK: J EXIT ROW: X
SEAT TAKEN: . WING: W PAID: P LAVATORY: LAV GALLEY:GAL BED:S
PREF ACCESS LAV: PAL DOOR: DOR SCREEN: SCR CLOSET: CLS
PREF ACCESS:H BASSINET:B LEGROOM:L UMNR:M REARFACE:@

As you can see the seats are in fact available, they are just shown to you as blocked (or in most websites case, "unavailable") because your ticket class can't reserve them. However they are in fact Available as you can see when looking at the true seat map.

Ah, thanks a lot. That makes sense and is very helpful: KL blocks seats in the business cabin depending on booking class, something I did not know.

Just signed up for Expert Flyer - and cannot find Cathay award availability. Do they just not do it? The Cathay thread has loads of people quoting stuff [that I thought came from expert flyer] so I'm confused. If not them, who else does this?

Cannot. Not sure if it is an information licensing issue.

In any case I expect it will return same info as AM own https://www.asiamiles.com/amwdsibere...NTRYCOUNTRY=HK
You still have to go thru BA/JL/QF to find partner availability.

Cos we're trying to figure out whether there'll be seats released later on.

It's been a couple of years since I've tried to book an award on DL, and a lot has changed in the interim.

I've been trying to use EF to search for available low-award inventory, and am confused by the results. As an example, if I look for 2 business class seats ATL-TYO on October 25, I get a result which seems to indicate that 2 saver level business seats are available on DL295:



but if I attempt to book this on DL.com, I get a price quoted from them of 240,000 miles per person, which is probably not saver level for a one way flight.

Is EF wrong, or getting bad data, or is DL.com wrong, or is there something else I'm missing?

As VS and FlyingBlue show the award inventory as well, it looks like it is saver level. Guess DL just wants to gouge you.

so, does that mean for folks using DL Skymiles, Expertflyer can't track pricing in any concrete way?

I don't think EF has ever tracked the pricing of award tickets. All that EF can do (and AFAIK has ever done) is to tell you when there is inventory available in the relevant booking class(es). So there is no difference there.

This is in contrast to cash fares, which are published to the GDS by airlines. EF will list those. But even then, airlines sometimes have private cash fares that they will sell on their own websites but do not formally publish. EF likewise can't track these.

I suspect that the problem you are facing may be to do with the position (AIUI) that DL has no fixed mileage prices for award tickets any more, but changes these at its discretion. EF can tell you whether there's availability, but not what DL will ask for an available seat - and that has always been the case.

Does it make sense to add advance seatmap search which allow user to select the 'letter' to look for? As you say the system returns a different avaialbility for different selling classes so it makes sense for people to check their own booking class and not the highest one (as the seatmaps are normally for that one i guess).