I'm having trouble getting EF to list all fares on a particular route.

What I'm after is JNB-CPT on BA. Using LON as the point of sale and all travel dates, the lowest displayed fare is in V class. This matches what I can buy using a UK-based OTA.

However, I know that the lowest publicly-available fare is in O class. BA will sell this to me directly.

But putting JNB or CPT (or any other ZA point) into the "Purchasing City" option box in EF won't show this fare, or any fares lower than V.

Am I missing something here?

We get our data from the same reservation systems that the travel agencies do, so it would make sense that we show what they do. It would seem that BA is only selling certain fares thru their own website, as such we wouldn't see them if they aren't being published thru other channels.

The Matrix sees the O fare

I did wonder about that, but I don't think that's the case.

OTAs in ZA will offer the low O class fare.

And ITA will price the O class fare on the basis that the selling city is in ZA (which is ITA's default). That alone suggests that this is a published fare.

However, if you manually change the selling city to the UK, then the lowest price quoted by ITA is the higher V class fare (in line with the EF display with selling city specified as LON).

This would suggest that the lower fares are only available for sale in ZA (or a limited region, at any rate) - but that's why I thought that the lower fares ought to be displayed by EF if the selling city is specified as (say) JNB.

So I'm still wondering if I'm missing something or whether there is a bug here. Thanks!

Aye—

I have a fare booked on AA198 JFK to MXP in September.

I just signed up for EF and was fiddling around trying to see if there was any upgrade availability to fit my request (Economy to Business).

However- when I tick the "Business - Upgrade" box it comes up with 0, but says 7 for "First - Upgrade".

Does this mean that there will be no upgrades using points + pay from Economy to Business on this flight, or is the availability not released until closer to the date?

Appreciate the help on this - I'm quite confused!

It just means there is no availability today---in other words the airline still hopes to sell those seats. Upgrades may be offered at any time between now and departure. Sometimes they clear a few minutes before the flight. :)

Thanks aktchi!

One more - is it possible that "X" class becomes available to 24 hours prior to the flight?

Thanks

For lowest-tier elites (Gold) and non-elites, X-class can become available at any time starting 24 hrs before the flight. For higher-tier elites, the window is longer (72 hrs for Platinum, 100 hrs for Executive Platinum).

Correct way to read this is that the X upgrades will definitely not be released before these times. There is no guarantee that they will ever be released, let alone at these precise times. As I said above, sometimes they are released barely a few minutes before the takeoff; sometimes not at all.

You won't find X on international flights, those are the complimentary/sticker upgraded on domestic flights.

DAK

ITA Matrix and ExpertFlyer discrepancies
 

Hi,

I was looking for a ticket from MAN-CAI on ITA Matrix and found the following:


Manchester (MAN) to Cairo (CAI) — Fri, Jul 31
Turkish Airlines 1996
Economy (S)

Istanbul (IST) to Cairo (CAI) — Sat, Aug 1
Turkish Airlines 692
Economy (S)

Cairo (CAI) to Istanbul (IST) — Sat, Aug 29
Turkish Airlines 693
Economy (L)

Istanbul (IST) to Manchester (MAN) — Sat, Aug 29
Turkish Airlines 1491
Economy (L)

However, when I had a look on Expert Flyer, it had the classes available as:

MAN-CAI
TK 1996 0 MAN
07/31/15 4:05 PM IST
07/31/15 10:00 PM 32R
Unavailable
48% / 30m C4 D3 K1 J0 I0 R0 Y6 B0 M0 H0 S0 E0 Q0 T0 L0 V0 P0 W0 X0 N0 G0

TK 692 0 IST
08/01/15 12:30 AM CAI
08/01/15 1:50 AM 32R
Unavailable
66% / 14m C4 D3 K1 J0 I0 R0 Y6 B0 M0 H0 S0 E0 Q0 T0 L0 V0 P0 W0 X0 N0 G0

So no S class tickets available

CAI - MAN:

TK 693 0 CAI
08/29/15 2:50 AM IST
08/29/15 6:05 AM 32R
Unavailable
66% / 13m C4 D4 K8 J4 I4 R0 Y9 B9 M9 H9 S9 E9 Q0 T0 L0 V0 P0 W0 X9 N0 G0

TK 1491 0 IST
08/29/15 8:30 PM MAN
08/29/15 10:40 PM 79D
Unavailable
33% / 22m C1 D0 K0 J0 I0 R0 Y4 B0 M0 H0 S0 E0 Q0 T0 L0 V0 P0 W0 X0 N0 G0

So no L class tickets on either leg

Anyone know why this might be? Thanks in advance.

What sales office are you using the check the availability on EF?

I'm using London as the sales office for both ITA Matrix and EF

I also seem to having the same problem on AMS-IST-CAI and CAI-IST-AMS

Amsterdam (AMS) to Istanbul (IST) — Wed, Aug 5
Turkish Airlines 1952
Dep: 12:15 pm
Arr: 4:45 pm
Economy (L)

Istanbul (IST) to Cairo (CAI) — Wed, Aug 5
Turkish Airlines 694
Dep: 6:10 pm
Arr: 7:25 pm
2h 15m
Economy (L)

Cairo (CAI) to Istanbul (IST) — Mon, Aug 31
Turkish Airlines 693
Dep: 2:50 am
Arr: 6:05 am
Economy (L)

Istanbul (IST) to Amsterdam (AMS) — Mon, Aug 31
Turkish Airlines 1951
Dep: 8:20 am
Arr: 11:00 am
Economy (L)

Cost per passenger (including taxes & fees)
£207.60
Total cost for 3 passengers
£622.80

But EF shows:

TK 1952 0 AMS
08/05/15 12:15 PM IST
08/05/15 4:45 PM 333
Unavailable
23% / 33m C4 D4 K4 J2 I1 R0 Y9 B9 M9 H9 S6 E0 Q0 T0 L0 V0 P0 W0 X2 N0 G0

TK 694 0 IST
08/05/15 6:10 PM CAI
08/05/15 7:25 PM 32N
Unavailable
27% / 30m C4 D4 K4 J2 I1 R0 Y9 B9 M9 H9 S6 E0 Q0 T0 L0 V0 P0 W0 X2 N0 G0

TK 693 0 CAI
08/31/15 2:50 AM IST
08/31/15 6:05 AM 32R
Unavailable
66% / 13m C4 D4 K9 J4 I4 R0 Y9 B9 M9 H9 S9 E0 Q0 T0 L0 V0 P0 W0 X0 N0 G0

TK 1951 0 IST
08/31/15 8:20 AM AMS
08/31/15 11:00 AM 333
Unavailable
79% / 14m C4 D4 K9 J4 I4 R0 Y9 B9 M9 H9 S9 E0 Q0 T0 L0 V0 P0 W0 X0 N0 G0

No L tickets on either: not sure whether ITA or EF are at fault here.

There are many airlines that show invalid availability on ita, those airlines are:
TK, QR, LH sometimes, EK sometimes
But most of the time its TK and QR, its an error with ita and not ef, ef uses GDS data, the same data most OTAs use.
Try to price your itinerary on expedia.com, expedia is one of the few OTAs that actually show the ticketing class, if the class you wish to book is the cheapest and expedia books it on a more expensive class, then you know for sure your class is not available.