Apologies if this has already been asked (I'm sure it has, but Googling didn't help).

Is it possible to create a seat alert for when a seat is *taken*? I have a seat empty next to my window seat, but I'd prefer to move to an aisle seat if the empty next to me is taken. Is that possible?

There seems to be some really bad stuff going on with EF and ex-JNB RTW fares. For the most popular fares, EF's fare quotes for US$ and Euros are off by more than $1000. The South African Rand (ZAR) price is accurate for some of those fares where the US$ price is way off, but on some other fares the ZAR price is non-existent. (The ZAR price is key for an ex-JNB RTW. In order to take advantage of the very low price for an ex-JNB RTW, the ticket must be issued in South Africa and priced in ZAR.)

Prime example is the OneWorld Explorer ticket. Ask EF for the price of a 5-continent RTW in business class (DONE5, on BA) in US$, and EF tells you it's US$4,410, a really good price! Problem is, EF is wrong: the actual price in South African Rand, which EF correctly quotes, is 67880 ZAR -- and at today's exchange rate, that's $5,613. Still a good price, but nowhere near the $4,410 that EF quotes. (And, of course, the actual price you pay is the base fare plus lots and lots of additional charges, but I'm only discussing the base fare in this post.)

The problem is similar for a 4-continent first class ticket (AONE4): EF says it's US$6,270. But if you ask for the quote in Rand, EF (again correctly) quotes 96500 ZAR, which is actually US$7,981. Things get really weird for some fares: EF says that an AONE5 costs US$7,213 or 0 ZAR. (Hint: neither is correct.)

Star Alliance ex-JNB RTW fares have their own problems. Ask for a RTW price in ZAR in either business or first (using LH), and EF tells you that all the fares are 0 ZAR. The US$ fares seem to be appropriate (e.g., US$7,345 for a CRWSTAR1), but I don't know if they're in fact correct.

The whole thing seems really odd. I was a software designer much of my professional life, and the obvious way (to me) of showing the US$ price would be to get the source price (ZAR) and convert to US$ by today's exchange rate. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

Hi there, just posted this question in the TK forum, but then found this thread.

This morning I received my ExpertFlyer alert that TK76 had (at least) 3 business class "I" fare seats available for booking. Unfortunately for me, neither United nor Air Canada can see and/or book the supposed space.

The query is still showing "YES" by the way...

Is there a way to correct this phantom award space query?

Edited to add: Dates I'm searching for LAX-IST are Sunday through Thursday, September 11-15, 2016.

Thx,
CLG

We show the exact data that is being returned by the airline reservation system. We don't choose or convert currencies, we report back exactly what a travel agent would see when requesting the same information. The GDS conversion rates don't always match the market spot rate, on purpose. It is not a bug or issue with ExpertFlyer.

If you want us to show you the raw output we receive please email your request to customercare@

That search shows no I inventory for those flights, please try again.

If you have a question for us directly, please email us directly at [email protected] to receive a prompt answer.

Yes, the query started returning correct results about 6-7 hours after my original post here. I've reset my flight alerts accordingly.

Thanks for the email address link, I didn't realize that there was a quicker avenue for questions/concerns.

CLG

It's quicker if ExpertFlyer Voice is awake and reading email, but it's by no means unheard of for the collective wisdom of thread subscribers to deliver faster responses.

For questions of a general nature askers are also doing everyone a favour, by helping build this thread as a resource which answers many queries without people ever needing to either post them here or email EF customer support.

Airlines use the IATA-mandated rate of exchange (IROE) and not the market spot rate for currency conversions. IATA's interbank rate is based on an average rate observed over a period of five working days taken up until the 10th of each month. This is to ensure that sub-weekly spikes in the currency do not unfairly affect the price, because inter-airline and travel agent clearing does not happen immediately but rather is deferred. The rate calculation is available for purchase here: http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/iroe.aspx

Unfortunately I do not have access to the IATA rate. But looking at the rough market spot rate back on the 5th-10th of May, that conversion (67880 ZAR = 4410 USD) looks about right. Actually, that is not very different from the rate at the moment, 67880 is 4343 USD. Whoever is offering you over 5500 USD for 67880 ZAR, sell your ZAR now and worry about airline tickets later!

The 0 ZAR rate is a known bug in the fare distribution system, as far as I can tell it is an integer overflow. Unfortunately you just have to ignore it.

It is not necessary to price your *ONEx itinerary in the local currency, it is only necessary that an office in the country of origin sell the fare. If they wish to price it in USD under the IATA-mandated conversion rate, instead of in the local currency, that is up to them.

In my experience the fares quoted by ExpertFlyer do not include various taxes and fees, notably the YQ and similar fuel or "carrier imposed" surcharges. This may explain why the fare you see from EF is not the same as fare when you actually try and purchase.

DAK

Is there a way on Expertflyer to set an alert for when a seat is filled? It seems this would be oft-wanted: being notified if the seat next to the one you selected has been filled.

The ExpertFlyer fare search does not include anything that goes into the taxes and fees box on the ticket, including the YQ and YR accounting lines. Those are not part of the fare price, but only part of the ticket price.

The taxes and fees calculations (including YQ and YR) are dependent on factors beyond the fare calculation (such as the route or airports used) so it would not be possible for EF to display them anyway in the "fare" search. [There is an option for "include fuel surcharge" or something, but it doesn't work for most airlines.]

I've got a Y-class fare on TK that's 4 segments long. I've got plenty of miles in my Aeroplan account. I've managed to easily upgrade 3 of the 4 segments from Economy to Business class using miles from the Aeroplan.com web tool. Unfortunately the fourth segment is giving me trouble for some reason. I'm getting a fairly clear, "inventory not available" message from the Aeroplan tool.

My ExpertFlyer account shows "4" available in J-class for all my segments (I think that's the max they'll show for some reason, because my first three segments showed 4 available both before and after I did my upgrade, which consumed 2 seats).

So my question is; how accurate is ExpertFlyer with this kind of inventory? I've checked multiple times over the course of about 36 hours. Is it a glitch?

Based on this page, I think TK books business class awards into I class (which could also deplete J inventory if there weren't many seats in that cabin left, I guess).

That's good to know, but I'm still curious about how accurate EF's data is. The biz cabin is reasonable free (9 of 30 taken) and has C, D, J and O available (now, I class is zero, but it was also zero on the other three segments I booked, before I booked my J upgrades).

Any further data to be had out there? Thanks again!

Have you received an eticket confirmation on your booked and upgraded itinerary?