ExpertFlyer Voice

Hi everyone, we are also making available publicly the beta of the new version of ExpertFlyer that we have been working on.

To use the beta:

• You must have an account on ExpertFlyer, you cannot sign up on the beta site yet.
• To use any features other than Seat Alerts you must have a Premium ExpertFlyer subscription
• You may login to the beta here: https://beta.expertflyer.com
• You login with the same email/password (or Facebook) that you use on the regular ExpertFlyer site
• When you login for the first time, all your preferences, alerts, and saved searches will be transferred from the old version of ExpertFlyer to the new beta site. From this point on, any additional changes you make to one site won't be transferred to the other.
• Any billing/subscription management must still take place on the current site, the beta is just the searching and alerting functionality of EF for now.

Improvements & Changes in the beta
Aside from all the existing EF functionality, we have added a few new features to the new EF:

• Married segment alerts: from both the Flight Availability and Award & Upgrade results any itineraries with connections will now allow you to create alerts for all the segments combined. (We know you’ve been patiently waiting for this one and we thank you.)
• Route Alerts: at the top of the Flight Availability or Award Upgrade results pages you’ll see a banner that prompts you to create an alert for all flights. It allows you to create an alert for a specific day/airline/class but for any non-stop/direct flight, not just one specific flight.
• SMS Alerts: You can now enter in a mobile phone number on the My Account page to get true SMS alerts.
• Seat Alerts as a separate search: Seat Alerts are now created via their own page that checks to see if the seat type you want (ie Any Window) is already available on the flight. If it isn’t, then you are given the opportunity to create a Seat Alert. Soon we will remove the requirement to know your flight number (the user will be shown a list of flights for date/airline/route). We will also be adding back in the ability to create a Seat Alert from the Seat Map results.
• In Flight Availability and Award searching numeric inventory values of 2 or less are now in red to stand out better.
• The default view in Flight Availability is by cabin, however you can click on the “switch to class view” link in the results table header to switch to the class code view. The preference will be remembered.
• A new mobile experience: Unlike the current EF the mobile version will have the same UI as the desktop version. It also uses the same URL, no more /mobile for the mobile version.
• A lot of general UI improvements

You may have also noticed our new logo and color scheme which we have updated the current site with to match the beta.

What we need you to test:
(Click the Give us Feedback button to report any issues)

• Make sure that all your preferences/alerts/searches were transferred over from the current EF when you first login. See the 3 icons on the upper right of the desktop version.
• The new features to ensure they work as expected, specifically the alerts. Creating Availability Alerts for inventory that already exists is an easy way to test that feature.
• My Alerts & Saved Searches pages - make sure that both old and new alerts and saved searches show correctly without any errors
• Search options - make sure that the options and combination of options of the various searches work as they should and produce the expected results. The results should match current ExpertFlyer exactly.
• Search results - you’ll notice that we changed the layout of some of the search results, especially FA and Awards. Please run these searches, especially with multiple days, and let us know if there are any issues.
• Test on a mobile device as well as the desktop.
• If you are not based in the USA please test SMS alerts to make sure they work for you.
• If you come across a reason why you would use the current EF over the beta, tell us.

A few things to keep in mind:

• The current site and the beta use the same data, if you see a difference in data between the two that is a bug, please report it to [email protected] with an example search so we can replicate it.
• If you have feedback, please email it to [email protected] so our engineers and designers can see it, they don't read FlyerTalk but do see the feedback emailed to that address, that's how you'll be able to have an impact, thanks.
• The beta isn't final, we are still adding features, big and small, and changes can still be made. Please be constructive in your feedback, thanks.

From this point forward we will be doing rolling updates of the beta as we fix bugs and add functionality. If you encounter a bug or issue, please report it using the Feedback button. We appreciate your help and patience while we build a great new experience for you.

Thank you,
The ExpertFlyer.com Team

dylarr

I signed in to the current version of Expert Flyer and got the banner up the top asking me to try the new site. However when i click that link, I get the following:

"Thanks for your interest!
Right now, we're releasing our beta test to a select group of users. If you're a current ExpertFlyer subscriber and you'd like to be added to the beta test, please fill out this form."

Doesn't look like it has been opened up to the public yet? I filled out the form to be added to the beta test anyway.

ExpertFlyer Voice

Our mistake, we didn't throw all the switches that needed throwing, please try again.

dylarr

Thanks for the quick reply! I'm in

Wow, what an overhaul. Looking good so far!

RobOnLI

I had the same problem as @dylarr but it's been fixed now. I finally have access to the beta. I've only looked at it for ten minutes but I have two major criticisms and already encountered a major bug:

1. So much more clicking!! What I loved about the original site was the drop-downs on the left showing me my saved queries. In the new site I have to click on the icon in the upper-right corner, then click "flight availability", then click the "..." next to the saved query I want to run and then click "search now". In the previous site I did this in two clicks on the same page -- one for the drop down and one to select the query to run. On the new site I am at a minimum of four clicks. Not to mention when I want to move on to searching the next saved query I have to repeat all of these steps again (or at least click back in my browser and then start with the "..." next to the query).

2. So much wasted/white space. When doing a flight availability search I can only see the first 1.5 search results at the bottom of the page. The fonts are huge, the wasted space is absurd and the layout of the pages is going to force a lot of scrolling.

So far, I hate the new site. I won't lie.

BUG:
1. I saved my first flight availability search which uses "UA" as the airline. On the page showing me my saved queries it correctly lists "UA". However, after the four clicks referenced above the flight availability results page is showing me EVERY airline including NK, AA, DL at the top. I will submit this via "give feedback".

Sorry, EF. You tried to make a change but honestly the original site just works better, even if it uses old graphics. The new site seems to have been made with "change for change sake" in mind rather than functionality and concise displays.

-RM

hugolover

The new design is absolutely awful. Destroyed an easy to use site overnight, especially on mobile. If you want to improve it how about seat maps don�t need a route, just a flight number and date?

You�re trying to make it appeal to novice flyers but really you�re alienating the �experts� it was created for by not offering a pro and a baby hand holdy version the new design is targeted at.

ExpertFlyer Voice

We are actually adding that exact feature to the beta soon.

The new design has all the search/results features of the existing version, we fought hard to make sure nothing was left out.

SFO_FT

Hoping that the full functionality—accessible on a single page rather than the countless pop up windows—of the original version will be available going forward. As others have mentioned, the dumbing down of “expert”flyer is disappointing. Searched LAXLHR for AA C space on 30Mar21. Only 5 results displayed, despite there being countless flights/routes that should have shown even when “show no availability” is selected. Also, is AA blocking C visibility to EF? flights show UPG available on aa.com but EF shows C0. Also, the flight results don’t clearly label which flights are codeshares, so AA7xxx, for example, isn’t labeled as a codeshare operated by BA. As others have noted, am hoping there’s an expert version that allows one to make all selections in a single location rather than relying on numerous pop ups and pages to select. Thx!

ExpertFlyer Voice

If you are finding bugs (like codeshare mislabeling) then please email them to us directly with an example, we won't be searching FT for bug reports.

Nothing has been "dumbed down" the results the beta shows is the exact same as the current site, they literally use the same data source internally to get the data. Any difference is a presentation bug that we can fix, so please compare both versions before you contact us or post here, thanks.

dkerr

Just tried the new beta site and my first reaction is that the layout is very pretty, but takes up a lot more space than the old version. Can we get a more compact view similar to the old?

Thx.
DAK

dkerr

Some further feedback... when searching on a very long a connecting itinerary (JFK-SIN) I get results that say total trip duration and when over 24 hours it displays as days/hours, e.g. 1d 7h 50m. I find that much harder to understand than the old way which would say e.g. 37h 50m which is much easier for me to compare to the alternative e.g. 22h 10m. So I suggest only displaying as hours even when over 24hrs. But... far more useful to me would be to see the connecting time.... the real difference between the two results was a 1h 30m connection versus a 11h 30m connection. So I'd like to see individual flight times and connecting times, not just total duration.... I can get flight duration by expanding on the little arrow then hovering over the flight details link -- but why... there is so much wasted space all of that could be displayed without hovering over the flight details. And connecting time is still missing.

El_Duderito

I had access to the private beta and funneled my feedback back to the team. Some of my bug reports were fixed and some improvements were implemented
On the other hand my main complaints remain.
For a simple use case like "check availability on BA LHR-MLE for January and February 2021 and not only check for First availability but also gauge the general load per booking class".
The amount of clicks it takes to just get the information for one week is ridiculous. The date picker is broken completely or falls back to today rather than staying on the current date. Can I make the 'classic view' for the booking classes the default?
As others mentioned the amount of whitespace makes for very little information per page.

ExpertFlyer Voice

The class code view will be the default if you changed the view to that, it is remembered.
If you have issues with the date picker just email us with an example so we can replicate.

Dave_C

So, I'm afraid I also can't stand the new UI.

On the flight search page, ironically, I'm drawn to the date picker first, before trying in my origin and destination airports. I then need to go back to those. Overall, it seems far less keyboard friendly and the flight search form takes longer to input the data. Trying timing someone inputting the data in the old and new systems and you'll see what I mean.

The flight search results page is even worse. The fare bucket display particularly is really poorly formatted. If you actually wanted to be useful and innovative, you could put the different fare class results on different lines by cabin, such as:
F9 A6
J9 C9 D8 D6 I0
W9 E5 T5
Y9 B9 H9 K9 .... G0

That would actually be useful and you can see at a glance, with details, as to how busy each cabin is.

Echo all the comments about too much wasted space. Definitely want to see more info on the screen, especially as I find it most useful on a desktop or iPad.

Edit - I can see that you've done this under the disclosure triangle. This takes up even more space! I should be able to see this at a glance. I don't need the "headings" saying 'First', 'Business' etc. This is expertflyer after all.

Basically at the moment, if you get rid of the old interface and impose this on us, I'll cancel!

Dave_C

More things I've found. The tab order for airline 2 and airline 3 input is discontinuous from Airline 1. I'm doing a fare information search and I want to search the BA and IB fares. I can enter BA, then a few tabs for other data, then airline 2 is IB.

It takes hitting the tab key twice (on Safari 14) to go from the "from" field to the "to" field on an availability search.

On the fare information search page, you can't set a class filter on the search page. So you have to search for all cabins. That means when you click on the fare information and then go back to the list, it loses your filters. I also don't like that there's an extra click to get to the fare rules, routing information, and fare class as it's hidden under the ellipsis.

What would have been really useful would actually be able to parse the information that's held in the detailed fare rules.

Let me filter on stopover options. Let me filter on fares that allow 'end on end'. Let me filter on fares that allow single or double open jaws. Should just be a simple text filter that you could add.

Similarly, I'd love to see some differentiation between constructed versus routed fares. Allow me to filter/sort on MPM. For constructed fares, show me a map of the possible combinations.

Let me take data easily into Excel or PowerBI so I can do some analysis on it.

They would really be market leading functions that would add value, rather than re-designing and interface that makes the product harder to use!