I am new to expert flyer a few questions.

1) Is it possible to set up an alert for a flight that is more than 331 days in the future? I would like to book my award on the first possible day and I would like to be alerted when that happens? Or do I need to track this separately on my on calendar and remember to go into EF on that day.

2) Is it possible to set a alerts for a particular route rather than a specific flight? It seems that if there are 5 possible flights I might take - I need to set up 5 different alerts? Is this correct?

To answer your questions:

1) You can set up an alert for any flight that has been scheduled. For some airlines that is more then 331 days out, but the flight has to be visible in the schedule before an alert can be created.

2) No, each alert is flight/day specific, you would need to setup separate alerts. This is why we include 30 active Flight Alerts at a time in your Premium subscription.

I've been paying for ExpertFlyer for a few months now and I really love the tools for searching on demand but I am starting to wonder if there's something I'm not understanding about the email alerts.

I have not ever gotten a single EF alert (except for the test alerts) about seats/upgrades/anything, and yet very frequently when I just check back in and run the search myself, or go through the airline's website, I find that what I set an alert for has been available.

This happened to me just now--I changed my Alaska flight to an earlier one, and all that was available was a single middle seat, so I set up an alert for windows/aisles. That was several hours ago. Just now, I logged into Alaska and found a small number of better seats had been released so I grabbed one; never got an EF alert. If I had waited for the EF alert (if it ever came at all) I suspect those few seats would have been gone by then.

I assume that it is not feasible for EF to perform constant checks on every user's alerts, as it would be very taxing on their servers. But over a few months of use I have not a single time gotten a useful alert notification even when my own periodic re-searching has found what I'm looking for. It makes it feel kind of pointless to pay for the service, even though I appreciate its impressive functionality.

Am I possibly misusing the service, or misunderstanding its function?

Have you ever seen something that should have triggered an alert, and left it for 24 hours? There are many alerts for which EF only appears to search once a day.

Without any information about who you are so we can look up your alerts we can't help you. Please email the details to [email protected]

However a common misconception is that alert notification should be immediate or just because you searched for something that should trigger an alert, neither are the case. Each alert runs on its own schedule checking at least several times a day. If you want to confirm that an alert will see available inventory/seats on its next scheduled check, just run a Quick Check from the View Saved Alerts page. Did you do that?

Also with Seat Alerts, if the seats that became available are marked as Premium or Paid but you did not choose the specific options to include Paid or Premium seats in the alert then you wouldn't be notified.

Can Expertflyer be used to look up historical fare basis rules for an existing multiple carrier ticket? I'm trying to check the expiration date of a fare - wanting to change the dates of travel after initiating the first leg (to maintain historical fares) and concerned that fare would only be valid from 1 year from booking date.

Ticket stock carrier says can be rebooked with no date restrictions (at least agent who I spoke to said this) but I want this confirmed, I will HUCA but wondering if I can get historical fare basis rules (as not attached to receipt of ticket as a change was made in first 24hrs).

TIA if anyone can help me with this! :)

Yes

On the fare rules page, change the ticketing date to the date on which the fare was ticketed.

Some information (booking codes, routing rules) is not always available if the fare is since deleted.

Ah thanks for that. I tried that, but had the fare basis code included in the search and no results were found. But tried again and left that field blank and now I see a bunch of fares with the fare basis code I have within the list. Strange that including the fare basis code makes the search too restrictive, but good to know and thanks for the feedback :)

Why isn't there a "Share Results" feature on the Flight Reliability Ratings tab of the Travel Information page?

Why does Expert Flyer not show Air Canada seats when they are released? They used to.

ExpertFlyer does show AC seat maps and awards. If you have a question about specific searches or flights you can email us at [email protected].

For quite some time, EF has been unable to look up AA fares to Tokyo (ORD-NRT, LAX-NRT). What could be going on?

I can see AA ORDNRT fares purchasing at CHI

Thanks. I have been able to narrow the problem I am experiencing: For some reason EF doesn't like the option "Show Fares for All Travel Dates" for NRT (it works fine for all other destinations I tried).

ETA. The situation seems to be improving. Thanks EF! I should have posted here earlier. :)

Expertflyer shocked me: promoting sale of miles!
 

I really am not that fond of Expertflyer as I think their service is overpriced and attitude is arrogant, but sometimes I have need to use them.

Imagine my surprise when the BANNER AD presented to me is for a broker that wants to BUY MY SKY MILES!!!!
I just couldn't believe it.
Expertflyer is truly getting very very greedy to charge big buck$ for subscription AND show ads that will get people in trouble!

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7595/...7db77cfe_o.jpg

clicking on the ad takes one to the 'Sell-Delta-Miles-Page-Call 702-5xx-xxxx' page at flyer-miles.com