We already commented about this:

So please try the search and email us if there are any issues.

Can anyone help me understand why EF is indicating that are 7+ S fare seats available, but when I got to AA.com, the lowest fare they have for sale is L?
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7cd883faa0.jpg

My best guess is this is because I do not see AA publishing a fare with S class basis for that routing. I checked by searching ExpertFlyer’s fare search for a one-way flight on 7/01/22 from DCA to ORD. I also double checked by searching for the same flight on ITA Matrix with the “F BC=S” faring option.

If I understand correctly, while there is S class fares available in the GDS, they are not selling this on AA.com. Is there another way to get access to these fares? Or are these just phantom fares?

They aren't fares, they are fare classes with availability. AA may not want to sell an S ticket DCA-ORD on that flight but may need S class inventory if it's a connection with another flight. We describe this in our EduGuide and FAQ on the Help page on EF where just because there is fare class inventory doesn't mean there is/has to be a valid fare to use it.

There’s a difference between there being space available in a “fare bucket” and there being an underlying “fare” for that bucket. For someone to sell you a ticket, you need both.

A “fare” is basically an offer from the airline saying “We’ll sell you a ticket right now for this much money if there is space in the S bucket for any flight between DCA and ORD on this date that meets some conditions.” You can then use the search you performed, the Flight Availability search, to see if there is actually S space available for you to take them up on that offer.

However, the availability of space on a plane and the availability of an offer to sell you a seat for a price if that space is available are two completely separate things. You can have either one without the other.

In this case, you did a flight availability search. It came back and said there is space in the S bucket. However, that is only half the question. To actually be sold a ticket, you also need a fare that uses that space. To look up what fares are available, you can use ExpertFlyer’s fare search. In this case, there doesn’t look to be a fare for this route, period, that uses S space. The lowest fare available uses L space. So, that’s what AA.com offers.

The problem may stem from the blogs, as is so often the case. Many of them seem to have adopted the terminology that if a flight is showing that it has (say) four S class seats available, then "there are four S fares on that flight". It sounds jargon-y, as if the blogger is in the know. However, if a blog says that, it's wrong - but then it's a blog, after all.

Thanks for the clarification, this makes sense to me now. I guess google flights is probably the best way to check for the cheapest fare, instead of creating a fare alert.

Thanks for the additional clarity, I'm on the same page now.

Agreed, my confusion stemmed from what I seemed to have understood from a couple blog sites.

More correct terminology, that may help understanding, would be to refer to the "S" inventory on the flights as Revenue Booking Code (RBC) inventory, which, as noted above, is only part of what's needed.

Many of us here prefer ITA Matrix, which has far more fine-grained controls and provides a lot of detailed information. Others prefer Google Flights for the speed and simplicity.

Can I ask if everyone’s EF is down?

Not for me. It might help if you were more specific -- can't login? Searches returning no results? Unexpected website error message?

When I search IB or BA for awards, I get this message:

IB (or BA) 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.

Do we have an ETA on a fix for this?

If you try a search you'll see that it works. We aren't removing the notification banner until we've fully tested a fix we recently implemented. If you have questions about a specific search please email us directly with your example for help, thanks.

It is awfully slow so when the results do arrive along with that banner one wonders if they are correct so thanks for confirming it is working despite what the banner says.

Will you notify users by email if the fix is found to not be working? I've set some BA alerts and I was hoping I could forget about it now and wait for an alert but I guess there's a chance availability appears but EF has stopped supporting BA again and I wouldn't even be aware