No, EF basically only shows you published fares, and these are readily available through many channels, including directly from the airline. There's nothing secret or hidden about them. EF's great strength is that it gives you real-time information about airline inventory, so you can see whether what you would like to book is actually available at the moment, or see why what you want isn't currently bookable.

EF also has a wealth of other relevant real-time information like schedules, and the alert functions allow you to ask to be told when things change so that you can plan your trip differently. There's also seating information, of course

When searching Qatar award space I received the following message "QR award inventory is temporarily unavailable due to an issue with our data provider. They are actively working to fix the issue. Thank you for your patience"

Does anyone know when it's supposed to be back online?

I'll second Globalizer 's post. I find EF an invaluable too for searching for award and upgrade availability - often only available through an airline's own website (and other award-only websites.) It's great for looking at timetables and availability, as well as seat maps and other flight information. But perhaps one of the key features of EF are the alerts - for awards and upgrades, schedule changes, seat availability and equipment changes. The alerts have enabled me to do what I do, but in a cheaper and more comfortable way, by being notified when there is a change (of seats, or availability etc.) The alerts alone are well worth the price of entry, IMO.

(Full disclosure: I have no connection with EF whatsoever, and I don't receive anything from them, except for use of the EF tool, for which I pay just like everyone else and the same amount just like everyone else, and I am happy to do so.)

rb211.

EF can certainly be confusing; it provides a lot of information, which is terrifically value if one knows how to use it, but can be bewildering otherwise. In brief, EF provides access to data that travel agents have (it of course only provides access to the data, meaning the ability to view it). I use EF more for finding good routes and desirable flights than for finding fares, but I do sometimes use it to find fares.

The Fare Information query, by default, shows fares available between the cities you specify on the dates you specify. Note that it only shows the base fares, not the fares with airline-imposed surcharges and government taxes and fees. By default, it only shows fares for which there is also availability on flights on your dates. Since the fares shown by default are available and have corresponding flights available, you should be able to book those flights and get that fare through an airline or online travel agency. So why look at EF? If you use some of the non-default settings, you can empower yourself to find lower fares. For example, if you check the box that says "Show fares for all dates" and uncheck the box that says "Validate fares," you will see fares that are available between your cities but perhaps not on the exact dates you entered or for which flights on those days don't have the correct inventory. What's the use of that? You can see potentially much lower fares. If you examine the fare rules (available by clicking a button on the fare), it might be a bit tedious to read, but you'll see if there are date or day of week restrictions, which airlines can be used, required booking inventory, advance purchase, minimum stay, and other limitations. Armed with that detailed information, you can work backwards to obtain that fare. Perhaps you need to adjust your outbound or inbound dates. Perhaps you need to use the Flight Availability query to find flights with the needed inventory. Maybe the fare allows free stopovers at certain points? You can take advantage of that.

Exactly.

Are you sure? I have always found that EF shows all the fares published by a airline that are valid for the date specified. But they may not be available... it all depends on the fare buckets that are made available for a particular flight. Also fares are complex beasts... they can depend on routing (must fly via XYZ), on specific flight numbers, with specific airline or codeshare partner, with specific advance booking requirements or minimum stay requirements, etc. There can be hundreds of fares. Whether you can actually find a flight for a fare you see in the EF list is quite another story.

I find EF's tools, including fare listings, to be incredibly useful. But you need to use it together with other tools or flight booking engines. I find ITA Software's matrix really helpful in finding flights/route that work for a given fare... and it breaks down all the taxes and fees too. And then move on to actually purchasing the ticket (usually directly with airline) armed with the information provided by EF and Matrix.

Edit... note that sometimes airlines do not publish all their fares. They can have lower fares only available at their website that are not published to places like EF.

DAK

The Fare Information search shows the published fares, without regard for availability. The Flight Availability search is what shows you the availability in a given fare class.

Isn't that what I said? I specifically talked about fare rules, fare applicability criteria, etc. If I gave the impression that EF does what Matrix does, that was an error and I apologize.

I think that when you said the following, it could be misleading:The Fare Information results will show all fares regardless of whether there is availability on the flights, so that you may very well not be able to book a fare that you see listed - as ExpertFlyer Voice says.

But you are right that being able to see the rules of fares that you can't book on your first choice dates is very useful to guide you to possible tweaks to your itinerary so as to be able to get that fare. And ditto using availability information to identify the dates/flights on which a better fare might work.

Ah, yes, I see. Thanks. I meant that by default it shows availability (meaning validity) on the dates that were queried, not for which there are flights available. Sorry about that.

Is there a way to force EF to show overnight connections in the availability search?

For example, I'm looking to fly BOS-MSP-MLI on DL and I actually want to overnight in MSP on a connection (not a stopover). ITA shows me overnight options, but when I try to look in EF for availability, it doesn't show those. My goal is to set up an availability alert for the connecting itinerary (using the beta tool) rather than individual flights.

For the Flight Availability search you can try the "At least X connections" option or make the departure time later in the day, those may help.

The "at least X connections" is not an option that shows up when the selected airline is DL, which is what I need, since they're the ones that fly this route. My only choices are "any" or "direct/non-stop".

Setting the time option to 4pm, for example, only gives me departures on DL 781 at 12:20pm connecting in MSP to DL 5068 at 3:25pm, or DL 789 at 2:30pm connecting in MSP to DL 4763.

What I'm looking to do is leave BOS on DL 690 at 5:45pm, and connect in MSP to DL 5068 at 3:25pm the *next* day. I can price this on ITA but I can't find it in EF to set up an availability alert.

The DL search seems really finnicky with what times and combinations it is showing. I can't even get it to show me any long same-day connections. For example, I can't find the combination to depart BOS on DL963 at 6am or DL 779 at 8am, and connect in MSP to DL 5068 at 3:25pm the same day. It'll only show me the 12:20pm departure.

Yes the DL availability search is a different issue, although we're hoping to fix that soon. Many times the best thing to do for DL is to leave the time at the default of midnight.

How soon do you think it'll be fixed?

If I leave the time as midnight, I get this error message:

The requested information could not be retrieved or is not available. This is likely due to invalid input criteria or lack of access to the information from the airline. Please revise the search parameters and try again.

We can't replicate that error, please email us with search specifics.