yes, to be clear, I don't mean this as a ding on EF - I'm just trying to understand the totality of the information flow for my scenario.

Once upon a time, there was a hard relationship between award fare bucket availability and pricing in miles on DL.

I know that a lot has changed, both at DL and in the data relationship between EF and DL since the last time I attempted this. I've not been able to fully suss out and understand the information that Delta provides, but I have seen hints and posts in the DL forum that implied to me that the information about the pricing might be embedded into the fare codes.

Since for now I am stuck with DL skymiles, I am mostly trying to figure out whether EF can help me with my task. It *seems* like the answer is no, but I want to avoid jumping to that conclusion.

If the price charged by DL may depend on which cash booking classes still have availability, then at least EF can help a bit with that if you run a search for standard availability for that flight as well.

That would be similar to the information you have to extract if you're likely to be priced using a Dual Inventory Fare. You have to check availability in the cabin in which you wish to travel, but you also have to check availability in the lower cabin whose inventory governs which DIF will be valid for your flight. In that scenario, it's easier because you can see both bits of information on the one screen. It may be that DL's current system needs you to do two searches on EF: one for award availability and one for cash availability.

Well our goal has always been to provide the most accurate information of the true state of a flight. By requesting the full fare class code for a seat map you see the true status of the seats, even if you can't reserve a particular one with the discount ticket you may have purchased. It's something we can consider, but it also adds a level of complication (also with Seat Alerts) that we are trying to avoid.

Question from an EF newbie: Doing a search for YOW-PEK on 4/22 (as an example), I see these options via YYZ:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9ead35649d.png

Why are the different 'options', which all require taking AC31 on the same date, show different availabilities in various fare classes (C8 vs. C2 vs. C5 vs. C2 for example).

I see this for many flights on many dates. Any ideas why?

This is a revenue management tool called married sector (or married segment) availability. The availability in a particular booking class is governed by your end-to-end journey rather than fixed by flight. It is not a coincidence that in the first example, availability is C8 D4 on both flights, and in the second example it's C2 D1 on both flights. The numbers are what the system is offering for the pair of flights taken together.

I suspected something like this. Thank you for confirming!

Does anyone know which GDS ExpertFlyer searches when checking flight availability?

My biggest issue with ExpertFlyer is that the flight availability tool doesn't always give me the same result as when booking on the airline website.

For example, there is U class seats (the cheapest fare for TK) available on the return flight on 11/4.
But on Turkish Airline (I set the country as France), I can only buy the L class:
imgur.com/a/VXust (can't upload pic directly)

Why can’t I get a U class instead… I have checked the fare rule (UHAPPYRT) and didn’t see anything which would prevent it to be sold on this day… It’s sold on 10/30 only.
I already tried clearing my cookies and changing ip. I have the same issue with KLM not selling me a V class ticket although it should be available. Seems like some day they sell it and some day they don’t even though it should be available based on EF.
I don’t know if it’s usual for airlines to do that, if that’s the case then I can't rely only on ExpertFlyer.

We use multiple GDSs.

Assuming all the fare rules are met (which isn't always the case) it sounds like a Point of Sale issue. Be sure to choose the correct POS when doing the Flight Availability search. You can email us directly at customercare@ for more help.

I am new to EF. I am getting strange errors about not having javacript enabled. But I have it enabled. Chrome Version 65.0.3325.181 (64bit).

I tried ot go to the page that talks about ghostery (which I don't have installed) and now I see the following:

Suspicious Activity Detected
Due to suspicious activity from your computer, we have blocked your access to ExpertFlyer. After completing the CAPTCHA below, you will immediately regain access unless further suspicious behavior is detected.

Note: This website requires JavaScript. If you have JavaScript disabled, please enable it before attempting to return to ExpertFlyer. If you are using Ghostery or NoScript, you must allow JavaScript from Distil Networks to run on ExpertFlyer.com as noted here.

You reached this page when attempting to access https://www.expertflyer.com/air/seatMap.do from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx on 2018-04-10 20:18:16 UTC.
Trace: f1a1ffe0-3c02-4515-b475-8ea510c11e06 via 35a9edc9-dac9-459f-8854-dc3ec5d9864f

But I don't see a captcha. I just signed up for a full year and am in day 2 of my 5 day trial. I am about ready to pull the plug on it. This is about the least user friendly GUI I have ever seen.

I'm not an EF representative, but I sometimes get the "Suspicious activity" when I'm connecting via a VPN. If you are connecting via a VPN and have the ability to bypass it temporarily, you might check that and see if it helps.

Nope. Doing it from work (where I registered). Maybe going through a NAT firewall might do it. But even your home router is typically a NAT firewall so that should not be an issue.

Fares vs availability
 

OK -- my example search is AYQ-CNS on 9/17/18. Fares list shows:
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1468cd8153.png
...and availability shows:
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6e98a71485.png

Initially I was puzzled why there were published fares that don't show up (even if zero availability) on the direct -- is that because they weren't ever offered on that flight except with married segments as shown below?

If that's the case, I'm still puzzled by G0 showing up, since it doesn't appear anywhere in the published fares list. How does that work?

There doesn't have to be a coloration between the published fares and the class codes assigned to a given flight. The G class may be there because there is a G fare for some other city pair that could use that flight as one of many flights.

As we noted in our email to you, that can happen when you have an add-in that is blocking our JavaScript. Please try a different browser, device, or private browsing mode then email us with the results.