I believe so, yes. You can explore what EF offers with a free trial subscription -- just don't start the very short test period (five days) until you know you'll have time to 'play' a little.

Thanks for the confirmation about this.

Is there a way to setup a flight alert for an airline that has not posted up their christmas schedule? I am trying to book a flight to Hawaii around Christmas on westjet but they have not released their flights. I was hoping to use expert flyer for notifications the second the flights are available.

I have a pro membership but recieve error messages anytime I try to set this up.

Correct you can't create an alert for a flight that doesn't exist yet.

I booked a flight through AMEX travel using points. Today I was notified that the flight schedule changed by AMEX. I then checked the Delta website to confirm the change. I went back over my emails to make sure I didn't miss the alert from EF informing me of the schedule change. There was none. The EF website Is still showing the old schedule for the flight DL 1664 on Oct. 20, 2020.

Have you tried other sources to see what the current schedule of the flight actually is? It would be odd for a GDS to show different departure and arrival times from those displayed by the operating airline, and AIUI EF shows information pulled live from a GDS.

The other thing that I wonder is whether there's been some glitch caused by the fact that DL1664 appears to operate both JFK-JAX and JAX-JFK - has something got confused about the directionality?

Something weird happening with EF.

Award availability CUN-LGW Jan 2021 shows as 0 every day, no alerts arrived, but in fact, there are lots available. Paying a premium for what?

Expertflyer website - 0 available, Rewardflightfinder website - flights available, BA website - flights available, BA call - flights available.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2c0a3f3664.png
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...847a7aacb4.png
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...062cfd8002.png

As Rewardflightfinder just scrapes from BA.com so there won't be any difference between the two. If you try to find the inventory on a partner airline website you'll find you can't. In fact Qantas, for example, just returns an error. It's likely BA isn't publishing the inventory correctly and when they do it will be reflected on EF as well.

If you have further questions about specific searches you should email us directly at [email protected] we didn't see that you did.

Few days later, ExpertFlyer still doesn't work properly. It's not my (customer's) business how you fetching the data, for me it only matters if the service is working or not. The fact is - service is not working as advertised. Any random excuse will go, but from the customer's point of view, it's irrelevant - advertised service is not being provided.

If it gives the right result for customer, why can't you do the same?

You are wrong. AA website is returning correct availability. It's a partner airline, right? EF still returns 0. (Good try with Qantas, though).
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f9f2b10ce4.png
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...97d6f3a735.png

Thanks for pointing what should I do. <redacted by moderator>.

I have no intention sending emails to you, as it won't help me at all (you already showed your type of excuse that would have been used).

This is an open forum to share users experience. And this is the key point of this post - to share the experience with EF and warn other users that EF is not as good as it is advertised, especially for paid services.

If you'd want to discuss this issue further with me, feel free to send a PM. Thanks.

<redacted by moderator>

If you don't want to understand how our system works, that's fine, but then don't pretend you know how it works better than we do. We gave the Qantas example to point out that there is an issue with how BA is publishing the award inventory, which happens from time to time. Part of understanding airline data is understanding that it's not like reading a book, there isn't a black and white answer to questions sometimes, we wish it was that easy.

Second, we ask you to email us directly so we know who you are and can lookup (and replicate) the exact search you did via your EF account, not because we're trying to get the conversation off the thread or create more work for you or whatever other reason you came up with, it's the best way for us to communicate with our customers properly. If you would like to email us for further help, where we can show you how the BA data is correct when published, then we will be glad to help you.

-EFV

<redacted by moderator>

In general, I understand how your system works, and I don't need details. And I'm not even trying to pretend I know it's better than you (lol). The thing is - your system doesn't work good enough, and this is the statement from the customers point of view. Those particular flights availability is returned properly with BA, AA, RFF and KVS (just got a PM from them), but not with EF. Instead of trying to fix your system - the way you fetch data, the way you analyze different sources (if you have different sources at all), the way you provide results etc etc (I have no details, you are right) - instead of that you just blaming somebody else.

So far all you help was - excuses and blaming. Oh, and <redacted> that you "won't help anymore". I think I can live without all this kind of help. If you'd be able to fix (or improve) your system, you'd do it already, isn't it. Anyway, the whole point of my posts here is NOT to get help from you (as you cannot provide any help regarding this particular issue), but to let other users know of your system's flaws. We share our experience - and my experience is that EF is not working the way it is advertised.

Moderator's Note: Personal Exchanges and Public Comments on Moderation
 

Folks,

Please refrain from getting personal with each other!

Condescending and disrespectful exchanges do not belong in public threads. Please use the Private Messaging system to discuss your personal disagreements. If you read something which violates our rules, and in this specific case FT Rule 12, do not respond in public. Instead, please use the 'Alert a moderator to this thread' button in the lower-left-hand-corner of the post to send me a note explaining your concern and leave it for me to handle.

In addition, please do not comment or speculate in a public post about moderator decisions or actions (FT Rules 18). I'd be more than happy to hear from you and explain my actions in private.

Thank you for understanding,

TWA884
Travel Tools moderator

In the time it took you to write your reply, you could have done the search and seen that our information vendor has fixed the issue:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0481664eee.png


We are indeed happy for everyone to see how dedicated we are to customer service and making sure EF is the best experience possible. You're welcome.

As my previous few posts illustrate, the discrepancy between EF and Air Canada's availability seems to be happening more often.

Here's my latest experience:

EDIT: Mystery solved. This seems to be an AC issue (their internal systems aren't speaking to each other). Details here:

​​​​

Unfortunately this happens way too often, ExpertFlyer just shows what the airline is publishing in the reservation system.