+1! In fact this is my first real use of ExpertFlyer since subscribing, and I could really use the information Expertflyer should provide on the flights I'm researching.

US Air Awards Restored
 

AA has notified us that US Air Award data has been restored as of today and can now be seen again in ExpertFlyer. Thank you for your patience.

US Air awards do show up now. Thanks for that.
However I found ExpertFlyer unhelpful for the trip I was trying to research and book. Maybe you can tell me if this is due to the information available from the airlines or if it simply can't be done on ExpertFlyer.
I was looking into a flight from Philadelphia to Auckland NZ using AA miles, in mid-March. On the American site there were many options that came up for this, depending on dates, obviously going first somewhere in the western US (LAX, SFO, PHX), then either going through Australia on Quantas, or through HNL on Hawaiian. The AA site showed most of the continental US flights as being on US Air, no problem.
Going via Hawaii obviously meant the least time in the air so I was looking at that. However on ExpertFlyer I could not get award information for the Hawaiian legs to come up, at all. On Hawaiian an Economy award codes as 'T' so I put that in, also 'X' as that's commonly used, but I get an error message that 'you must select at least one Award or Upgrade Class'.
This search didn't work, either asking for US Air, connecting through Hawaiian (it would show Hawaiian flights but no information on seats) or simply searching for Hawaiian.
I was putting various options on hold through the AA site, but the apparent availability changes day to day--even minute to minute--so I was hoping ExpertFlyer would actually give me some transparency as to what flights and seats were *really* possible.
I finally just booked a good route, US Air to SFO, Hawaiian to HNL then to AKL, same on the return.
But please let me know if I was doing something wrong or if it's simply not possible to do a useful search this way, a problem with the Hawaiian information or whatever. This is the kind of thing I subscribed to ExpertFlyer for.

It sounds like you were trying to use AA award classes (T/U/Z) with US Air operated flights which doesn't work. When you select US Air in the Award/Upgrade search, the US Air award classes are presented to you (O/I/X) and those are the ones you should choose from. The award classes are determined by the operating airline, not the airline whose miles you are redeeming.

Or (it's unclear based on your post) you were trying to look for a class code that isn't supported such as T on HA. T isn't listed for Hawaiian because it isn't published and therefore not shown on ExpertFlyer. Just adding the class as an Other to the Award search won't do anything.

Thanks for the quick reply. Sorry I was not more clear.

The code for economy award ticketing on Hawaiian is 'T.' I am quite sure of this as I've already got this flight and there it is on the itinerary. I entered that in 'other' as the only choice to auto-check is First Flex.

If you simply don't have this information from Hawaiian that's understandable, if disappointing. I hoped that it would be possible to search for award ticketing that involves multiple airlines in an alliance, evidently not here.

(edited because tl;dr)

I'm probably misunderstanding but if you mean a US coded HA flight (i.e., US*HA), surely the economy award booking code will map into X (as a US code) not T?

Unfortunately, HA don't publish their award availability publicly, so EF cannot see it.

Thanks for responding! If ExpertFlyer can't show that info because HA does not share it, fine.

Evidently I was better off just checking the AA site, as I did, over and over again, until I found exactly the route and dates I wanted.

As one who uses AA miles on AA.com to book awards on HA flights, I can say you are correct that the fare bucket HA uses for partner awards (as in miles redeemed from AA for HA flights) in economy is T and for first class it is D. At one time, maybe a year ago, HA briefly for several weeks made these codes viewable through the GDS and EF was quick enough to pick this up and add it to their Awards & Upgrades tool. It was nice while it lasted, especially for setting Flight Alerts on EF, but HA soon took it off the GDS and EF lost the visibility.

I'm sure you know, but keep in mind that when using any partner airline miles the award or upgrade fare code to search for is the one of the airline you will be traveling on and not the one of the airline whose miles you will be using. If the fare code of the traveling airline is the same for mileage airline for a particular class it by coincidence although some airlines are trying to harmonize their codes like AA and US will eventually.

Hope this helps.

^ Thanks, that makes it all clear. I did figure out what you noted about the proper codes but it was by trial and error. As a relative noob I need all the help I can get and I appreciate the tip!

Does ExpertFlyer check fare code frequently enough for alert?

Two days I set a fare alert for 3 months out. I set 3 alerts for AA flight in classes N, Q, O (separate alert for each). I just checked this morning on aa.com and N class had opened 1 seat so I booked and held.

But I never received an alert. The fare code was opened by AA within the past 8 hours - since I manually checked then with no availability.

Now I know that the EF algorithm for checking is proprietary, and I know that they check less frequently farther out - but is that effective enough to get an alert?

Of course, the 1 seat is now gone since I booked it - so I don't expect an alert now (today).

Alerts are checked several times a day, more so as the date of the flight gets closer. If you want to check to see if an alert would find open inventory if it checked at that moment, you can run a Quick Check from the View Saved Alerts page.

Without knowing the specifics of the alert we can't help you, please email [email protected] for help. There may be other factors involved such as married segment logic if your alert segments are part of a larger itinerary.

Thanks - I will contact customer service with particulars. It was a simple DFW-DCA segment - alert set only for that flight - separate one for N, Q, O bucket. Nothing else.

Could be I just happened to check at around the same time that it opened. I then made the reservation, held it, the ticketed later that evening on the same day. It that is the case - then note sure if customer service can do much - since it would show when checked and not available, and then not available later since I booked it.

Email sent to customer service. AA opened another N class seat this morning and I am not getting an alert. (I already booked the ticket two days again anyway).

The alert if very clear in my alert settings. Will report back when I get Feedback from EF.

I know that ExpertFlyer Voice said "several times a day", but my experience would suggest that for flights a long way away it may be as little as once a day.

As an experiment, seeing as it no longer matters to you, you might want to see what happens over the next 24 hours.

expert flyer [finding"C" availability for AA]
 

Has anyone else had trouble seeing C availability on EF lately for AA for international flights? I am on 137 later this month and 50 in a couple months and C does not even appear in flight availability( A shows Up). Am I doing something wrong?