Thanks. EF is now showing Economy award availability for the flights from LHR and LGW (but as you say not LCY) to EDI but still doesn't show any of the available award inventory in Business. That problem appears to apply to all dates not just November.
Yes, I could report problems like this to you by email in future but of course it requires cross-checking my EF award searches against the BA website to know it there is a problem and that rather defeats the purpose of using EF in the first place!
I'd be interested in the experience of any other FT members who've regularly searched for BA award availability on EF. Have you been able to get reliable accurate results?

Yes for BA mainline (although there was a specific issue a week or so ago: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...t-working.html).

No for flights operated by CJ or MN. IIRC I think that there have been times when EF worked for CJ and MN operated flights, but I think it's been a while since I've seen that. I've learned to live with it.

With the same caveats as Globaliser, the answer has almost always been yes.

In deciding whether to post a question here or email EF, I try to consider whether answers (including a possible answer from ExpertFlyer Voice) are likely to be of general interest -- and therefore worth adding to this public (and searchable) resource -- as well as whether the experience of FTers is likely to be helpful.

ExpertFlyer Voice knows the product inside out, of course, but collectively the users gathered here have vast experience from our side of the UI and can often offer valuable insights and guidance.

My question is how do I know which I fare is available when there are 20 different I fares?

Thank You

Fare bucket availability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being able to book a particular advertised fare. Look at the rules for the cheaper fare you'd like to book and you'll probably see a restriction that your preferred flights don't meet. Likely candidates include advance purchase period, date range, days of the week allowed in each direction for the TATL flight and minimum stay, but there are others.

ExpertFlyer is an excellent tool for researching filed fares and the associated rules. The ITA Matrix will help you put a suitable itinerary together.

EDIT: You've changed your question since I replied, MarJon, but finding the answer for any trip you're considering will still involve looking at the fare rules.

First thank you for your response and yes I did change it since the first one was based on screenshots that did not work, so I modified the question... I thought I looked at the restrictions but maybe I missed something...... Thank You.... -Jon

Is there a way to create a seat alert so that if say, 2 First Class seats become available, I get an alert?
I see you can do "any 2 seats together" but what if you just want any 2 seats?

Thanks!

If you are referring to ticket/award ticket inventory alerting then that is a Flight Alert, not a Seat Alert.

I have also found the EF results concerning BA awards to be accurate.

Thanks, that's reassuring. Though the problem with business class award availability not being shown for the London-Edinburgh routes still seems to be present.

Thanks! Sorry, I was inquiring for paid seat, not award ticket.

Do you mean physical seat allocations on the aircraft, such as seat 1A?

If so, are you looking at a flight on which there is only one seat available in the cabin to allocate? Otherwise, by definition there are already at least two seats available so no alert can be set for that condition.

If there is only one seat available in the cabin, and you want to an alert for whenever a second seat becomes available, then one way is simply to set one seat alert for every unavailable seat in the cabin. You'll get alerted the first time that any of them becomes available. If the originally-available seat has not become unavailable in the meantime, the effect of the notification is that there are two seats available because a second seat has come free. This is not perfect because the originally-available seat may have become unavailable in the interim, but this might go some way towards doing what you want.

So the First cabin is currently "no available". I'd like to set an alert if any 2 seats become available (I know, slim to none chances). But I do see your other option there that may work, and just see what happens.

Thanks!

Are you actually seeing a seat map, and is that showing every seat as unavailable? If there is no seat map and you just have a red message of some kind, then off the top of my head I'm not sure that you can set an alert anyway.

The other to check, if you're not seeing a seat map of any kind for that cabin, is whether that flight is actually planned to operate with a first class cabin.

Yes, sorry. Seat map on both United (shows occupied/unavailable) and expertflyer (shows all occupied) basically seem to show the same info.
UA flight 501 ORD to DEN on 8/30/19 (again I know a snowball's chance in you-know-where of any seats becoming available).