U0. For the case where you see 2 U0 flights before your flight, as noted in the help for the Awards and Upgrade results page:

•Sometimes American will return just two flights where the requested award seat availability is zero on both flights, even when there are later non-stop/direct flights scheduled. This is American's way of indicating that none of the later flights have available inventory for the request class either.

To test, set the time of day to just before the departure time of the flight and it should show as U0. It is also possible that AA removed the class from the flight temporarily. Rare, but we've seen it happen.

Hi,
I'm considering subscribing to EF in order to book award domestic SAAver Flights on AA using BA Avios points. My understanding is that I will be searching SAAver flights on AA to accomplish this, and not BA on EF. How soon should I subscribe to EF in order to get award flights for August 2013? 330 days out - in September 2012? Thanks!

Yes your understanding is correct. You can subscribe to ExpertFlyer anytime! Yes, the flight will show 331 days before departure at which time you can search for awards and create Flight Alerts for flights that don't currently have award inventory available.

Seat Alerts wins again! Thank you for voting!
 

We are proud to announce that ExpertFlyer's Seat Alerts won the Business Traveler People's Choice Innovation of the Year Award at the GBTA and Fast Company Innovation Competition July 24th at the GBTA convention in Boston. So to everyone that voted for us, thank you!

Seat Alerts iOS App Now Available
 

Today we're proud to announce the release of the Seat Alerts iPhone/iPad app. It can be found here in iTunes or go to the App Store app on your iPhone or iPad, and search for “ExpertFlyer” or “Seat Alerts.”

• The Seat Alerts app allows you to create a Free ExpertFlyer account if you don't already have one.
• In-app purchasing of Seat Alerts, for advanced options or if you need more then one alert active at at time for a Free account, charged to your iTunes account, no credit card required.
• The app includes push notifications so that you can be notified on your iPhone/iPod Touch, or iPad when a Seat Alert finds a better seat.
• Existing users can login to their existing account with each device to register it for push notifications.
• The Seat Maps on the app also include SeatGuru ratings information, just tap on the seat.
• Works with Basic and Premium ExpertFlyer accounts as well to create/manage Seat Alerts.

So please download the app and let us know what you think. We would greatly appreciate a positive review in the App Store, or if you find something you don't like, send us an email instead. Thanks!

Android version coming soon...

While searching for fares, I find that sometimes there is a little mismatch between what I am looking for and what EF offers. Basically, EF asks for origin, destination, dates, etc and throws lots of fares at me. Sometimes that is what I want. Sometimes not, and I was just reminded of that, so let me illustrate.

I prefer AA/OW and usually fly from ORD, but I could fly from MKE and STL quite easily for a good deal. For sufficiently lucrative deals, even from NYC, DFW, or LAX. I would like go go somewhere in S/SE Asia. Depending on fares, let's say BKK, HKG, SIN, or DEL.

So this will translate into 24 queries.

Moreover, each query will throw a lot of fares at me, although I am only interested in the lowest few.

What I would like is a little more powerful syntax and a little more filtering. For example if I could state my itinerary ITA style,

From ORD,MKE,STL,NYC,DFW,LAX
To BKK,SIN,HKG,DEL
Restricted to AA,CX (can already do that)
All dates (can already do that)
And just give me the lowest few fares (I can provide the $ cutoff, or the number of fares to be displayed. Of course, I can easily ignore the expensive ones if a long list is returned, but I am imagining that it might save EF some money if it doesn't have to provide unnecessary info.)

You yourself mentioned ITA. That's the tool for doing what you lay out. EF is an awesome tool, but for other purposes. Like PowerPoint vs. Excel.

If ITA were sufficient, why would we be looking for fares at EF in the first place?

EF orders the results by base fares, which I find useful. Fare rules, routing rules, etc are available with one click. At ITA you'd need to build complete trips to see the rules.

Besides, I am talking about strengthening the capabilities of EF which is a paid service. ITA is a freebie which can be taken away anytime.

The only reason I mentioned ITA was to illustrate a syntax that, eg, allows you to ask about fares from 6 origins to 4 destinations through 3 possible connections, all in one query. At EF this would take 72 queries.

Therein lies the problem. Even if they automated it for you, EF would still be doing 72 queries on the back-end, and at a few cents per query, your search costs them upwards of a buck or more. Not too many of those and you become a not-very-profitable customer for them. :)

EF and ITA are built completely differently on the back end. ITA has access to raw fare data and uses a powerful algorithm to determine the best prices and routings available. EF does not have access to raw fare data (that costs several hundred thousand dollars per year, maybe more, as I recall) and only receives what the GDS spits out when it is queried.

Don't get me wrong, I would love it if EF could do what ITA does, but it's simply not feasible.

OK, I understand. In my case, if I am looking for a great fare to Asia from somewhere in the USA, I'd end up doing dozens of queries anyway, one at a time, until I see something. Unless I get lucky and someone posts it at FT/MP. Still, I can see how others will abuse the feature. :)

So, a poor man's version of what I wanted would be for EF to cache results from various queries and have a list of cheapest fares that have been found, in broad categories like domestic transcon, NA to Asia, NA to Europe, Europe to Asia, NA to SA, etc. Or run their own scan at some regular interval (once a day, once a week, whatever is affordable) and posts the cheapest fares found. No guarantee that the fare is still alive when I am looking at the list, but if it interests me I'll make a live query.

This could even save EF some money, as many repetitious queries now being made by different customers would be reduced.

I don't understand why you wouldn't use ITA for this (unchecking "Only show flights and prices with available seats" if all you're looking for is the lowest PUBLISHED fare, not one that's available).

What am I missing?

First, ITA requires you to have an idea of the dates you'd be traveling; I just want to know what are the best fares filed.

Second, you have to choose round trip v multi-city before knowing which fares allow stopovers and which don't.

Third, ITA sorts by total price, EF by base fares; each has its utility.

Fourth, EF already provides all the info I want, but requires a few dozen queries. I have the reasonable desire to explore if this can be made a tad more efficient.

Most importantly, this is the kind of info many EF customers would be interested in: finding out fares and fare/routing/stopover rules before choosing dates and itinerary, instead of making a blind choice and checking availability.

I'd like to see if EF's user interface can be aligned with those needs.

I can certainly understand if this is not affordable. Not knowing their business details, I had no idea, but I do understand that everyone has their budget and bills.

However, the argument that something sort of similar though not quite the same is available at some free site elsewhere, which may have been in the process of diluting public access, makes no sense.

The back-end processes to get what you are looking for are completely different. EF queries the GDSes in real-time. They don't have access to raw fare data. To know the best fares filed, you either need access to the raw fare data as mentioned previously or you'd need to do many hundreds of queries to the GDS. It is not feasible to program EF to do this--it's not just a matter of automating some tasks, it's like asking a motorscooter to do the work of an 18-wheeler. They're two completely different things.

What you're looking for is what was formerly supplied by FareCompare.com before they shut it down (for whatever reason). That was one of my go-to sites, and there really isn't anything out there to replace it and likely won't be, given the cost to obtain the data.

The "Show Fares for All Travel Dates" option will allow you to see all published fares regardless of date, however a city pair is still required due to GDS limitations.

considering signing up for Expert Flyer
 

Does EF allow me to search for award space on all 3 of the alliances? When I do a search, will it pull up all alliance members who have space, or do I have to search by airline and route.

I've got a lot of miles I intend on using over the next couple of months/years. most of them are in United. I intend to be traveling to Africa and Europe primarily. A trip to South America on AA miles is also in the future