Is there a way to search for XN (economy award availability for elites) on UA using Expertflyer? I thought EF displayed that booking class in the past, but can't seem to find it anymore.

I'm sorry Seat Alerts do not operate in that way, however thank you for the suggestion.

No that data is not available.

EF still has problem in displaying RTW fares even with only 1 airline specified. I tried O&D NRT to no avail!

Edited: Double check EF again. No return if I put in JL or AA. If I put in CX, it now returns with the fares. Yey!

Phantom Aer Lingus Space?
 

I’m trying to book TXL-DUB on 15 June 2018. EF shows U7, but when I try to search it on my Aerclub Avios.com account nothing shows as available. United.com also does not show this space. Am I missing something here?

That is what Aer Lingus is publishing to the reservation systems and is not something we control. You should call them directly to ask about the U inventory, you can mention that your travel agency is seeing it published. Please email us directly if you need further help.

Hi,

On June 1st AF/KL has moved from inventory scheme to dynamic pricing for awards (except for First class on AF).

Should I understand that the Award & Upgrades feature of ExpertFlyer is now useless for the below award classes?

Business - Classic Awards & Upgrades (O)
Business - Flex Award for Elites (C)
Premium Economy - Classic Awards & Upgrades (A)
Premium Economy - Elite & Flex Award (S)
Economy - Awards for Elites (L)
Economy - Classic Award (X)
Economy - Classic Europe Award (T)
Economy - Long-haul Flex Award (B)
PE/Economy - Short/Medium-haul Flex Award (W)

It remains to be seen what classes will or won't apply, however for partner airline award redemptions for AF/KL flights, the O and X classes are still very much useful and needed.

Thanks for the reply :)

Agreed on O and X (maybe A for AF as well?) for using partners' miles on AF/KL metal.

For dynamic pricing awards, there is a long thread about it on the AF/KL board.

The understanding so far:
- New system seems to work for Economy and Premium Economy as we see a wide range of required miles depending on route and loads. AAA-CDG-BBB prices differently as CDG-BBB for instance.
- Lots of unrealistic (but real) amounts of required miles for Business class even though loads are lights (think 450k+ for one-way Europe-Asia). Some suggest the system is not ready yet. Why for Business only remains a mystery though.

In any case I am eager to see how ExpertFlyer will handle this.

Is there any way to force the search to show flight availability results for the BA (PEK-LHR) + BA (LGW-DBV) routing? I am using the "Flight Availability" option with Airline=BA and Connection=LON for the route PEK to DBV, and with the departure time set to around the time of the PEK-LHR BA flight, but at the moment it only throws up the CA (PEK-LHR) and BA (LGW-DBV) routing.

Both involve an overnight connection - just seems a bit odd that the "all BA" route isn't picked up (there is certainly a through-fare on this route). If I select the Oneworld alliance option and then take out interline connections the results show me various routings via HEL or DME but not the BA routing through London. Not a huge problem as I can search for each separately, but certainly a bit mystifying ...

Just wanted to share something with you as an FYI that may save you some trouble down the road...
I had an Flight Schedule Alert set up for an upcoming flight. The flight was canceled. I received no Alert. I contacted Expert Flyer support to see why, and they explained it as "the Flight Schedule alert is based on the Flight Detail results, and the absence of the flight data cannot be reliably interpreted as a cancelation."

This kinda makes sense, and I thought the support rep was helpful. However, the bottom line is this: If you have a Flight Schedule alert set up, just be warned, you will not be notified if the flight is canceled. I love my Expert Flyer, but I think this needs to be addressed for the future. I can get an alert if my departure changes by 5 minutes, but not if my flight is cancelled.

Seat Alert not working for LO flights
 

I have the Premium version and for some reason I cannot set a seat alert in LO flights for any seat that is unassigned prior to OLCI.

On LO seat maps, any seat in Y that has not already been blocked or selected (e.g. by someone with a fare that includes seat selection) will show up as 'Paid and Premium' (according to the symbols). These are unassigned seats that can be reserved prior to OLCI for a fixed fee (10EUR/40PN), which generally covers the bulk of seats in Y on LO flights (most people travel on discounted fares and get assigned seats at check-in).

However, I find that for all these seats there is no way of adding them to any seat alert. If you select the check box 'Include Paid seats' it does not allow you to tick any of the seat options below (e.g. Aisle, Window, Exit Row), so you cannot create a Seat Alert when this box is ticked.
But if you untick it then try to create any seat alert then all of these seats are unselectable (only Blocked/Occupied show).

I know this used to work as I have a saved notification from last year for WAW-POZ where I had selected 'Include Paid seats' and had specific seats defined in the seat alert.
For some reason there now doesn't seem to be any way to get it work with Paid seats (Premium and Blocked don't cause any issues).

I tried doing this with the Seat Alerts mobile app also and the results are the same (no seats of any kind are selectable when Paid seats are included).

It's likely the overnight connection that is causing the issue. The reservation system will prioritize shorter connections when possible and if the overnight connection is too long it may not be shown at all if there are shorter alternatives.

This is not specific to LO flights, this is how Seat Alerts works. You can only select seats that are Occupied or Blocked. The whole point of Seat Alerts is to let you know when Occupied or Blocked seats become available. Since Available Paid and Available Premium seats are just forms of Available seats, you can't select them to be notified if they become available, because they already are available (if you pay or have elite status).

The Include Paid or Include Premium options tells Seat Alerts if you want Available Paid or Available Premium seats to trigger an alert, or just plain Available seats.

If you need further help with a specific flight, please email us.

Well in fact it turns out that it doesn't work with Blocked seats either (there was a mistake in my original post). If I select 'any seat' then Blocked seats aren't selectable; if I select 'Include Blocked seats' I can't tick any of the seat selection boxes and so can't create an alert. I understand what you said with regard to Paid seats, but why don't Blocked seats work either?

Also, could you explain what is the function of 'Include Paid seats' if by selecting it you remove any possibility of creating a seat alert?

How can this feature ever work in practice?

You can't specifically select Blocked seats because, don't forget, Blocked seats are not assigned (so they are available) but the airline is blocking them from assignment. However if a Blocked seat becomes un-blocked and turns into Available, then it will trigger an alert for Any Window, Any Aisle, etc if that Blocked seat was an Window or an Aisle seat, etc.

The feature works all the time. Again, "Include Paid Seats" means that a seat that goes from Occupied/Blocked -> Available Paid would trigger the alert. Without specifying that option, only pure Available (with no paid/premium restrictions) seats would trigger the alert.

No, it doesn't "remove any possibility of creating a seat alert". If there is, for example, only 1 window seat available and it is marked as Available Paid, then you can create an Any Window Seat alert because there is no purely "Available" window seat at that time. However if you choose the "Include Paid Seats" option, then of course you wouldn't be able to create a Any Window Seat alert when there is already a Available Paid window seat available, as that alert would just immediately notify you.

Think of the "include" options as "allow X type of seat to trigger the alert".

Again, if you need further help in understanding this, please email us a specific example and we will walk you thru it. This is also explained in the help for the page: https://www.expertflyer.com/popup/he...p-results.html