Thanks dstan for an excellent contribution and analysis.

Why is it so?
 

If I do a Flight availability search (not an award seach) eg SYD-EZE 27/4 +/- 3 days with QF listed in the airline filter and the don't show interline connections box checked the result does not return U availability.
If I uncheck the interline connections box then U availability appears for the QF-operated flights SYD-EZE
If I add BA to the airline filter (even though no BA flights appear), the U availabilty for QF-operated flights is there but it also shows U availability for the QF-coded/LA-operated flight SYD-SCL.
Enquiring mind wants to know - although for no good reason ;)

Same if I add BA to QF in the airline preference list for SYD-LAX it will show P and U availability

ExpertFlyer picks from many different ways to access airline data depending on which airline(s) and options you choose in your search. For example, the Don't Show Interline option requires us to use a different GDS then we normally do as it's not supported by our primary one (same for the force 1/2 connections options).

As for QF, specifying just QF as the airline will tell the system to directly access the QF host, thereby allowing you to see flights a full 355 days into the future. If you specify no airline or more then one, then we use the GDS which is only 330/331 days out. As a side effect of this, talking directly to QF only shows classes where the availability is >0 whereas the GDS availability shows classes that are 0.

Making these choices on the back end automatically to get the best possible data for a given request is part of the magic of ExpertFlyer ;)

Thank you for your suggestion.
I was just asking for an information I needed and was surprised by the answers... (rules of FT, sounds like you don't want to pay etc...)
I am just a traveller, glad to help when I can.
I know now where I can't ask for helping.

How can you look up published routings? For example YYC-PER via the Atlantic... Thanks!

If you are referring to flight availability/schedules, just do a Flight Availability search. If you are referring to the Routing Rules of YYC-PER fares, do a Fare Information search and click on the Routing Rules icon to the right of the fare you want to see the valid routing for.

Nope, not schedules. Actually looking at specific routings (not fares) for YYC-PER via FRA, etc. (Atlantic, not Pacific). I assume from your post that the only way to do this is to look hard... :(

Qantas Award/Upgrade Availability 355 days out
 

We're pleased to announce that ExpertFlyer is now able to access Qantas Award/Upgrade availability for all 4 award classes up to the full 355 days in advance. However as a result of the way we have to access the QF host to get the extended information, a flight will only be returned by Qantas in the Award & Upgrade search if the searched class has availability greater then zero.

If you would like to ensure that all direct flights are listed for purposes of creating a Flight Alert, you can add a regular fare class, such as Y, as an "Other Fare Class" in the Award & Upgrade search. Alternatively, you may also perform a regular Flight Availability search as the 4 award classes will also show there when their values are greater then zero and QF is the only airline specified in the search.

If you have any questions about this, please email [email protected]

jlisi984, there's a tool a FTer has created that lists routes various airlines fly. You could use it as a rough guide as to how to get from YYC-PER by selecting your start city and end city and see what common points in Europe come up.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...-released.html

Otherwise, yes, it's going to just be hard looking. The published routing depends on the published fare you're looking at, as ExpertFlyer Voice commented before. If you give us a better idea of what you're trying to look for, there are other tools that might help you better. For example, kayak.com offers a tool where you can select what layover airports you want.

Hope this helps!

How to look up MPM? is it the YY fare?
how about the city pair without any published fare?

one example, PEK to YAP
or LXA to ROR?

i guess i do a lot of award ticket on going to remote location.
and so far, CO is really easy as they dont enforce routing restrictions.

How about something like SZX to DPS. it seems that the MPM is useless, and the published routing involves non-star carrier.

Thanks.

MPM for fares that are MPM fares (as opposed to fares restricted by routing) are listed in the Routing Rules for a fare (from the Fare Information results). However if a city pair doesn't have a published airline or YY fare, then there is no published MPM.

Fare information
 

I noticed that to actually see -all- fares one need not to change 'today's date, otherwise the system will only show 'all' fares available for travel only AFTER a specified date (regardless of seasons and other restrictions).

Fare help
 

Using ExpertFlyer to look at fares between RDU and AMS for travel on 3/12 return on 3/15 I see a DL T fare (TLXSL91) that lists $393 round-trip followed by another T (TLWSL91) that lists $443 round-trip.
TLXSL91 DL T Round-Trip 393.00(USD) E 02/10/11
04/12/11
SU / 1M
TLWSL91 DL T Round-Trip 443.00(USD) E 02/10/11
04/12/11
SU / 1M

But when I go to ITA to price it out (flights have T available) I get the following:
Fare (A1): DL RDUAMS TLWSL91 fare (rules) , psgr type ADT $401.50
Fare (A2): DL AMSRDU TLXSL91 fare (rules) , psgr type ADT $396.15

It appears that ExpertFlyer is reading what should be a one-way as a round-trip.

After playing around a little more, if I un-check the validate fares box the fares seem to display correctly:

TLXSL91 DL T Round-Trip 753.00(USD) E 02/10/11
04/12/11
SU / 1M
TLXSL41 DL T Round-Trip 793.00(USD) E 01/14/11
04/12/11
SU / 1M 07
TLWSL91 DL T Round-Trip 803.00(USD) E 02/10/11
04/12/11
SU / 1M

That is not the problem. If you notice, the difference between the two fares for TLXSL91 is $360. That is 2x the one-way fuel surcharge of $180 (as noted in the Surcharges section of the Fare Rules).

It looks like that the rules of when to apply the fuel surcharge are ambiguous enough that without knowing the specific flights, the GDS doesn't know if the surcharge is applicable or not, so it doesn't get applied unless validation is turned off. ITA shows the amounts with the fuel surcharge because you're pricing out a specific itinerary with specific flights. It's a tariff display vs a fare quote for specific flights, two different things.

We've seen this before but it doesn't always happen, most times the fuel surcharges are applied always or never, depending on how the airline files them, which of course is never consistent. Unfortunately the results don't contain information about if a particular surcharge is applied to a particular fare (you have to price out an itinerary to see that), however we always request surcharges be added so the GDS does it where it can.

One trick to see the true base fare before fuel surcharges is to look at the Routing Rules for the fare. That will list just the base fare in the top of the response.

Thanks for the explanation - makes sense but would be nice if it displayed a little more clearly.