how do i create an award seat alert on CX using AA miles?

CX does not release award seats to EF. You will have to call AAdvantage with your dates.

Because that is what BA is returning. When you specify BA as the only airline we do a direct search with the BA host, bypassing the GDS level availability. The airlines sometimes ignore certain parameters of the search.

In need of help
 

I am new to Expert Flyer and have been struggling to figure this all out. I am trying to book a flight from NYC to BKK leaving 11/30/15 and returning 12/12/15.

I looked at the fare availability on UA and see that there is a Class K fare (KLX37GM0) at a round trip price of $561.

Then I go to the Flight Availability section and look for flights between NYC and BKK on the set dates and see that Class K has seats available on multiple UA flights.

Now when I go to book it via United.com I cannot find these seats. Please help. This getting to be incredibly frustrating.

Thanks.

First of all, the fare shown on EF does not include taxes and fees.

Secondly, the fare you want does not allow Asia->US travel on Saturday:

Finally, and most importantly, the fare code you want expires on 30NOV15 -- it simply isn't valid for a flight on 12/12.

If you book a flight on UA.com, you'll see you get the fare code you want on the outbound.. just not on the return.

Greg

It would be nice but may increase their cost. Anyway, while conducting any search, be it at EF, ITA, Google, or even non-travel stuff at Amazon, I like them to search a little beyond my parameters, just in case it uncovers some exceptional opportunity. If not, I can always ignore these extra results.

The classic case is someone who thinks he prefers a nonstop, but hasn't paused to consider if that preference would hold in case a 1-stop was available at ½ the price? Similarly at ITA people get carried by powerful advanced routing language: one might specify 90 min minimum connection time, but again would one have really minded an 85 min connection at ½ the price?

That's why I want such services to provide information, but not make many and if possible any judgment calls. For judgments I prefer the buck to stop with me---and before stopping, keep moving to me. :)

They already have the data in a sortable, selectable way. It's probably ten minutes of work. ;)

If I specify a nonstop or a 90 minute minimum connection then that is precisely what I wanted. Were I willing to take an 85 minute connection then I would have said so. ;) It's like when ITA offers me a four hour flight in Y when I explicitly said J or higher, saving me 4 GBP: no thanks. Or when ba.com thinks I might want to fly to CDG instead of ORY. Were I willing to do that, I would have said PAR not ORY as my destination. These little things do really annoy me because they waste my time. ;)

It's up to you to widen your search parameters. In this case, the service is actually making a decision for you now to show you some extra results and not others. We don't really know why it picks certain things outside the specified parameters, so really you have more uncertainty on whether you have obtained the best result than you had if it had done what you had asked.

ExpertFlyer is "expert" flyer, it is designed for people that have a good understanding of travel reservation concepts and systems. I subscribe to EF precisely because of this. EF is designed to show exactly what the GDS returns and that is what I expect of it. I do not want EF adding any filters in front of whatever the GDS returns.

Now having said that, I do think it would be helpful to have enhanced sorting and filtering options on the results page, much like you can do on ITA Software's results page.

DAK

I can see there is some force in this argument.

Indeed. ^

Or a radio button on the search page: "I really have thought about my search criteria and would like results that meet them." ;)

Wouldn't you just end up being equally unhappy with the GDS for returning the same irrelevant results?

I can't see why this is an issue provided that the flights that match your request are returned, and returned at the top of the list. If you're looking for BA non-stops, IME they will be.