It was the same cause as your other example, no differentiation of the fare other then the routing itself.

Is there any plans at all to bring award availability for LH, NH, SQ, OZ and TG?

Also, I really despise the fact that I can't get a text only output or a printer friendly version, if I choose to, of the results.

Honestly without an improved UI and these added options I'm not sticking around at the end of my prepaid sub and will be defecting back to KVS.

This would be great if it happens. This way there is no need to keep continusely hit Refine Search, wait for the page to load back again and do what you gotta do then hit Search again.

Ideally if you could make the changes on the same page as results, it would be perfect but I may be wrong, but I think EF is intentionally pushing people through the loops in an effort to slow down the searches.

It also makes it very difficult to do comparison searches in multiple tabs. Clicking "Refine Search" doesn't do what you'd expect it to do, which is refine the search on the open tab. It always refines the most recent search, regardless of the tab you're on.

It was a pleasure meeting John a few weeks ago at the Chicago DO. I also tried to sneak in a few suggestions, but in retrospect, submitting suggestions just before his presentation was probably not the best time.

I wonder if the EF site can automatically generate saved query names for me. For example, I often would need to save a seatmap for repeated search, but the names I pick are always of the same format "11/04 nrt/lax". It would be nice if the EF site can automatically generate "11/04 AA170 nrt/lax YJF" for me (maybe not for all query types, but at least for simple ones like seatmaps or fare).

Also, any chance of making the links on the mobile version larger? On my phone, I often hit the adjacent links by accident.

On the issue of the mobile usage: I often prepare and save my searches on my laptop, and then when I am at the airport, I go directly to saved query on the mobile site. It would be nice I don't have to hit Saved Queries first (perhaps a list of recently saved queries, or a list of same-day query, on the home page).

I would appreciate if EF can add these to the list of enhancements considered.

Finally, one sentiment I expressed to John in person and I want to repeat here: Thanks for EF. It is simply indispensable in my travel planning.

We could, but of course for everyone who thinks it's a good idea there will be someone who will be annoyed that they now have to delete what we put in there to enter in something else. We'd have to create an option somewhere to enable it on a person by person basis. However we'll put it on the list.
We're really looking to just create a touch version of the mobile site which would make the whole experience better for touch phones.

This one we probably won't do as it doesn't create functionality that doesn't already exist 1-click away and while you may find it convenient, others may not. However we'll note it as well.

You're quite welcome, thank you for subscribing!

I find it fascinating yet another user has offered up the same suggestion and proposed virtually the same solution requested back in August regarding pre-populating the query name box.

I look forward to EF making changes for which its users have been clamoring.

Very well.

I know that as a service provider, you can't accommodate all wishes, and I am quite happy with EF as it is now.

Seems like my simple question regarding plans for introducing award availability for the most important *A partners LH, NH, SQ, OZ and TG was conveniently ignored.

This is a functionality readily available through KVS and Award Nexus by the way.

Did you think about emailing them directly, assuming you are a subscriber, since this is such an important and timely question for you?

Thanks for the suggestions, actually not a bad idea.

EDIT: Just had an enlightening exchange with EF Customer Service. They took the time to explain the situation with awards etc. which is much appreciated. I think I've come out of it with more knowledge. haha Thanks EF.

I appreciate good customer service like that, but I've always been curious why they can't post such details here for the betterment of the entire FT community and engage in that discussion here (like many other travel product providers do). After all, we HAVE to represent a HUGE majority of their subscribers.

We have, numerous times, here's an example: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/14559984-post13.html

Your welcome, glad we could help.

We�re happy to let you know that tonight we�ve released yet another new ExpertFlyer feature - SeatGuru integration with ExpertFlyer.com Seat Maps. We haven�t officially announced it yet, however we wanted to allow the FT community to try it out first and see what you think.

We�re really excited about this because the integration isn�t just a link that takes you to a page on SeatGuru.com. For applicable flights, you�ll see the actual SeatGuru ratings icons and information overlaid directly on top the Seat Map results. To our knowledge, the only other website that does this is Expedia (which owns SeatGuru parent company TripAdvisor).

We've done a lot of development to try to get as many seat map searches as possible to match and show the appropriate SeatGuru data, however it�s an inherently complicated process and won�t work in every situation. The SeatGuru layouts were designed to be a representation of what the plane looks like in real life, not the GDS representation of the plane. As such, there will be times where there isn�t a match or the system can�t differentiate between similar choices that you or I may be able to figure out with an educated guess. We've come up with a set of rules that try to be smart about the matching process without leading to false matches and wrong rating data.

Some situations where the SeatGuru data may not be displayed:

• When there is ambiguity about which equipment type a flight is with no differentiating factors (seats, exit rows, etc) to help make a decision.
• When there is no exact seat layout match and no equipment code match of any kind.
• Codeshare flights (Operating airline information isn�t returned with seat map data from the GDS, just the marketing airline)
• Flights that have a variable �moving curtain� between cabins may not work. We may not be able to identify the aircraft if we don't know which rows are in which cabin and there is ambiguity about the equipment used.
• Multi cabin searches may have some cabins with SeatGuru data and some without. This is because we do matches on a cabin by cabin basis. This allows us to process a request in parallel so a search with 4 cabins doesn�t take any longer then a search with a single cabin.
• Airlines/aircraft that SeatGuru doesn't have ratings for yet.
• The SeatGuru data isn�t available on the mobile version of ExpertFlyer. We are looking to link to the mobile version of SeatGuru.com in the future.

To help the process of finding a match, when a Seat Map is requested from a flight displayed from Flight Availability or Award & Upgrade results, we may also use the equipment type and operating airline code (for codeshares) from the FA/AU results. Many times, the equipment code listed in the flight schedule and the equipment code returned to us in the seat map request are different.

We ask that any bug reports be emailed to us directly at [email protected] so we can handle them properly. If you are reporting what you think might be a bug because there was no match or a mismatch to SeatGuru data, please first check SeatGuru.com to find the seat map that matches the seating configuration ExpertFlyer shows and include the link to that seat map in your email.

Thanks as always for your support. We hope you enjoy the latest addition to ExpertFlyer.

-EFV

Just got the email notification about an update on this thread so had to go to EF and try out this new feature ... I like it and I like the new view of the seating also ... well done - a nice addition!

BTW thanks for working diligently and eventually successfully on getting all Aeroplan reward classes returned to EF...

Great!

Edited to add: Playing around with this I noted that my seating on two long-haul LH flights were not desirable. Was able to get LH to change the seating. Just paid for itself once again! Thanks

Wow, nice update! All of my saved AA seatmaps look good. FWIW, my only comment is that the new icons, while slick, actually make the seatmap look quite busy. I preferred the old, plain, easy-to-read format.