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Old Feb 14, 2015, 12:53 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: ExpertFlyer Voice
The purpose of this thread is to post questions, feedback, and report issues with ExpertFlyer. The ExpertFlyer team will respond as soon as possible from the ExpertFlyer Voice account (usually within 24 hours except on weekends).

You can also contact ExpertFlyer support at [email protected]
This is a community-maintained thread it is not supported by ExpertFlyer.

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Seat Maps: we're currently not able to show seat maps for flights departing within the next 24 hours for several airlines: DL, BA, QR , ANA, B6, & JL
Searches currently not working:
  • Upgrades - AY, BA, EK, EY, IB, QR, VS
  • Awards - AY, BA, IB, EY, QR, VS

To search AA upgrades:
  • Use the Award & Upgrade tool
  • Only search for individual segments (set the "Connection Preference" drop-down to "Direct/Non-Stop only"). Flight results that are part of a connection won't show the upgrade version of C or A inventory because AA only files upgrade inventory as individual, not married, segments. (Married segments show revenue inventory instead of upgrade inventory.)
  • To avoid confusion, check the "Exclude Codeshares" box, as AA awards and upgrades are not valid on codeshares.
  • 2 minute video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRNFYIbHp4











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Old Sep 16, 2022 | 9:25 am
  #2671  
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Originally Posted by ExpertFlyer Voice
TApples and oranges. ITA has their own schedule, availability, and fare data and is the pricing engine for many airline and travel websites. EF uses the GDS APIs for data and is limited by their capabilities.
Speaking as someone with a degree in computer science and several decades of experience in technology, I can confidently say that if you wanted to implement this function (searching/returning multiple departure/arrival airports in one search) you could do it. It may take some work or be expensive to implement, and so you may not want to from a business perspective (totally understandable), but from a purely technology perspective it is absolutely possible.

If today I can manually enter:

BOS - MCO, PVD - MCO, BOS - TPA, PVD - TPA

and execute this search 4 times, then it is entirely possible to modify EF so that I can enter:

BOS,PVD - MCO,TPA

And then EF will execute the four searches behind the scenes and then return the results to me on the screen in one grid.

I'm happy to discuss this further offline and offer technical advice if you're at all interested, although I'm sure there are plenty of other people who are more competent in this area than I am.
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Old Sep 16, 2022 | 9:37 am
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Question on ExpertFlyer alerts

Hi all - quick question on EF alerts for Aeroplan award bookings. Unsurprisingly, I've been having trouble finding availability for summer 2023 travel ex NYC to Europe on UA/LH/LX/OS/etc in J. Before I commit to paying cash fare, I just wanted to know if it was possible to set up EF alerts on partner airlines for award availability in J. For example, could someone please provide guidance on how to set up an EF alert for JFK/EWR to ZRH on LX metal, if it's even a possibility? Thanks!
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Old Sep 16, 2022 | 9:46 am
  #2673  
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Since this is a fairly generic EF question, I'm moving this to the Travel Tools forum.

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Old Sep 16, 2022 | 5:38 pm
  #2674  
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Connecting from Australia. It appears to be working this morning (Sat, 17 Sep 0938 AEST). It think it was a glitch at Expertflyer's back end.
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Old Sep 17, 2022 | 5:56 am
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QR inventory error

I'm getting the below error when searching award space on QR. What will be the ETA for fixing this? Thanks.

"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."
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Old Sep 19, 2022 | 5:19 pm
  #2676  
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Originally Posted by wylek
BA, IB, AY, QR -- all still unavailable, and have been for quite some time. Yet we're still paying full price for our EF subscriptions.
Originally Posted by ExpertFlyer Voice
Hi folks, we're testing a solution for BA/QR/IB awards in production, so you can search (ignore the message at the top of the page) and please email us directly if you find searches where there is an issue with the results or that just don't work, thank you.

Update 4/29: We're fixing edge case issues as they come up. As part of that we may have to turn off the search from time to time. We'll post here with updates and we won't remove the notification banners from the results pages until we think we have it correct. Thanks.
Originally Posted by drcollosus85
I'm getting the below error when searching award space on QR. What will be the ETA for fixing this? Thanks.

"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."
Award searches for multiple Oneworld airlines have been intermittently or completely unavailable for many, many months now.
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Old Sep 19, 2022 | 6:41 pm
  #2677  
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I have a question regarding Qatar Airways and American Airlines. I assume it's probably been asked before, and tried to search this thread but I don't think I've found what I need.

I understand QR can't be search; however, does that also apply if I'm trying to search for code shares with AA? Here's my example: looking at JFK to DOH award availability tomorrow (9/20), there is business class availability on both AA flight and QR flight:



On ExpertFlyer, I can successfully see U2 for the AA120 flight, and I would have expected to see U1 for AA8116 - the Qatar flight with 1 seat available. Isn't it how it's supposed to work? Or can it not find QR award inventory at all even if it's through AA? Hope my question makes sense!

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Old Sep 20, 2022 | 3:59 am
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Originally Posted by Klems
I have a question regarding Qatar Airways and American Airlines. I assume it's probably been asked before, and tried to search this thread but I don't think I've found what I need.

I understand QR can't be search; however, does that also apply if I'm trying to search for code shares with AA? Here's my example: looking at JFK to DOH award availability tomorrow (9/20), there is business class availability on both AA flight and QR flight:



On ExpertFlyer, I can successfully see U2 for the AA120 flight, and I would have expected to see U1 for AA8116 - the Qatar flight with 1 seat available. Isn't it how it's supposed to work? Or can it not find QR award inventory at all even if it's through AA? Hope my question makes sense!
Award inventory isnt valid for codeshares, only by searching the operating airline can you see the award inventory for that airline.

With regards to QR awards specifically we thought we had a solution however it showed expanded award inventory that wasnt available to partners. As such were working on a different solution and will post when its ready.
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Old Sep 25, 2022 | 6:50 pm
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Originally Posted by ExpertFlyer Voice
Since many airlines now have dynamic award pricing, and those prices are only available on their websites, that is something we can't offer. This is why we stick to showing the saver award inventories, which is also the inventory required with partner award redemptions.
Greetings. Having some issues using the United search tool (ie no *A availability) for business class and decided to try Expertflyer to see if I could find anything better but my results on expertflyer actually appear even worse than they are on United. I think from the quote above the answer is that due to dynamic pricing of rewards expertflyer only shows available space in I and not JN or ZN (which can't be searcher for as it only allows a single letter class code). Is that correct?
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Old Sep 25, 2022 | 8:00 pm
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Originally Posted by Digital Jester
Greetings. Having some issues using the United search tool (ie no *A availability) for business class and decided to try Expertflyer to see if I could find anything better but my results on expertflyer actually appear even worse than they are on United. I think from the quote above the answer is that due to dynamic pricing of rewards expertflyer only shows available space in I and not JN or ZN (which can't be searcher for as it only allows a single letter class code). Is that correct?
Yes, also if you are looking for award inventory on an airline other than UA you have to choose that airline from the list. Selecting UA will only show UA operated flights.
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Old Sep 26, 2022 | 4:18 pm
  #2681  
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I'm looking at AA award travel WAS-LHR. That's not a route AA serves nonstop, but I do want to travel on AA metal. (Crazy surcharges on BA, and higher redemption levels when redeeming AA Business Extra points.) Lots of ways to get there via one connection -- JFK, PHL, BOS, CLT, RDU, ORD, etc. The EF beta's "Create Route Alert" feature could be perfect for this -- monitor all those routings in one fell swoop. Will EF check all of those? Or just the top few? How to know which it will check? The EF Beta shows six results on its award search result page, whereas old EF typically shows up to 8 results. For me, for this purpose, the deeper search is that much more useful.
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Old Sep 26, 2022 | 8:01 pm
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Originally Posted by bedelman
I'm looking at AA award travel WAS-LHR. That's not a route AA serves nonstop, but I do want to travel on AA metal. (Crazy surcharges on BA, and higher redemption levels when redeeming AA Business Extra points.) Lots of ways to get there via one connection -- JFK, PHL, BOS, CLT, RDU, ORD, etc. The EF beta's "Create Route Alert" feature could be perfect for this -- monitor all those routings in one fell swoop. Will EF check all of those? Or just the top few? How to know which it will check? The EF Beta shows six results on its award search result page, whereas old EF typically shows up to 8 results. For me, for this purpose, the deeper search is that much more useful.
The route alert does the same search and will see the same results that you see, however the reservation system will normally return connection options with inventory in the requested class before flights that don't have it. Both the current and beta site use the same back end data engine, so you'll see the same amount of results. If you have further questions please email us with specific examples.
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Old Sep 27, 2022 | 9:39 pm
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Hi, if I am on a Flight Availbility page looking at availability for a specific flight, can I jump across to the Seat Map page for the same flight without having to go to Seat Map Search and manually re-enter the flight details? (Or vice versa.) Thanks.
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Old Sep 27, 2022 | 11:02 pm
  #2684  
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Originally Posted by stmaus
Hi, if I am on a Flight Availbility page looking at availability for a specific flight, can I jump across to the Seat Map page for the same flight without having to go to Seat Map Search and manually re-enter the flight details? (Or vice versa.) Thanks.
Look to the right of each result in the Flight Availability Search:


the 3 buttons are (1) create a flight alert (2) show flight details (3) seat map for that result.

If you are using the mobile version, tap on the + to expand each result and use the links that appear.
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Old Sep 27, 2022 | 11:49 pm
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Originally Posted by Zorak
Look to the right of each result in the Flight Availability Search:


the 3 buttons are (1) create a flight alert (2) show flight details (3) seat map for that result.

If you are using the mobile version, tap on the + to expand each result and use the links that appear.
Thanks!
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