BA Seat maps within 24 hours of flight departure

Does BA withhold seat maps for flights departing within 24 hrs?
If so, why?
If not, then why the errors on BA 162 departing 5-Oct "There was an error message from the airline when trying to retrieve this seat map: 0102 SEAT MAP NOT AVAILABLE, REQUEST SEAT AT CHECK-IN" ...

I know that in general BA does not allow free seat assignments for non-elite passengers until within the 24 hr window before departure - however one of my uses of Expertflyer is always checking the seat map to see if there are better seats coming available due to upgrades, etc. I almost always check-in at the airport but get/change my seat assignments earlier.

If BA chooses to withhold the seat map on a flight at any time prior to departure then they will return a message like the one you saw. Those messages are the direct response we receive from the airline. We cannot speak to an airlines policy of when or why they may withhold a seat map.

New problem: I login, which goes fine. But when I try to do anything it says "Your previous ExpertFlyer.com session has timed out. Please log in again." And the same cycle repeats over an dover.

I had that issue too. I waited a little while, but also completely closed my browser, and then it worked ok again.

FWIW, I have the same issue using Safari on iPad, but everything seems to work fine using Opera on Android phone.

We just pushed an update that changes how this works. As noted by wcj1:

Close your EF browser tabs then close and restart your browser, then go back to the home page and login again. If anyone still encounters issues after that point please email us at [email protected]

Yes, from all GDSs.
Who knows. Personally, I think it's stupid, but it's BA: they also withhold gate information for their flights!Hear hear. Not on BA, though! :( :td:

I did those things (Safari on iMac) and the problem went away for 1-2 sessions, but it has returned now. Actual flow is as follows:

1. Go to EF home page, try to login, and I land at the "Having trouble logging in?" page, with option to login again.

2. Try to login again and it seems to go through.

3. Try to do something and I am sent back to the above-mentioned "Having trouble?" page.

4. Steps 2-3 repeat over and over.

Email sent as asked, but I prefer public discussion of common problems, so we can learn from each other's experience. This is clearly not anything related to my personal account issues.

Technical issues usually need more in-depth information then anyone would think to give on an public forum, which may include identifying who they are. We ask for emails so we can have all the information in one place for our engineers to analyze. Forums are not conducive for giving tech support.

Edit: We just pushed and update we think will fixed the problem, please close EF browser tabs, restart your browser and try again. Thank you.

Works fine now. Ipad2, ios6' Safari browser. Same with the mobile version. Thanks.

Full Star Alliance Award Search Support
 

First, all remaining UA Award and Upgrade classes and alerts have been restored along with numeric availability. If you encounter any issues, please send us an email with the details of your search.

Second, we are happy to announce that ExpertFlyer has just added an additional 20 airlines to our Award & Upgrade search as well as our first alliance award search.

The newly added airlines are:

• Adria Airways (JP)
• ANA (NH)
• Asiana Airlines (OZ)
• Austrian (OS)
• Blue1 (KF)
• Croatia Airlines (OU)
• Egyptair (MS)
• Ethiopian Airlines (ET)
• Island Air (WP)
• LACSA (LR)
• Lufthansa (LH)
• SAS (SK)
• Singapore Airlines (SQ)
• South African Airways (SA)
• TACA (TA)
• TAM Linhas Aereas (JJ)
• TAM Paraguay (PZ)
• TAP-Air Portugal (TP)
• Thai Airways International (TG)
• US Airways (US)

With these additions ExpertFlyer now has 100% Star Alliance Award coverage. In addition, there is an additional entry at the top of the Airline list in the Award & Upgrade search called “Star Alliance”. Choosing this option will show results that can include any Star Alliance airline in the search, our first true alliance level award search.

Award searching for these airlines now also benefit from ExpertFlyer’s unique features:

• Flight Availability Alerts
• +/- 3 day searching for Departure and Return dates
• Include up to 3 fare classes in Award results when searching for a specific airline
• Mobile web Award & Upgrade searching

Please let us know if you have any questions and if you run into any issues please email the details of your search to [email protected] to help us troubleshoot. We hope you enjoy the new additions and thank you for your support of ExpertFlyer.

Thanks. It seems to be working fine now. ^

I am not a *A person, but kudos for the effort and achievement. ^

I would look forward to a similar expansion of OneWorld searches, whenever that may become possible.

^^^^^^^^^
Can you provide some clarification where the info comes from? If its off united.com, there will be phantom LH availability, if Aeroplan 'waitlisted' phantom availability, ANA shows false negative often.

I assume whatever was available previously (LX) will still shown availability for M&M members, whereas the new additions will show only star net availability?

Correct, the LX award search hasn't changed it is still from the M&M point of view, as it was before. Nor has any other previously supported airline changed. You can look at LX inventory from the Star point of view by selecting "Star Alliance" as the airline for the award search.

Please try out the new search and let us know if you encounter any issues. If you have questions please email us the specifics of your search to [email protected] thanks.

Nice.
We are happy to announce that ExpertFlyer has just added an additional 20 airlines to our Award & Upgrade search as well as our first alliance award search. We also want to offer you a 15% coupon for reactivating your subscription with ExpertFlyer.
Coupon:
Your unique 15% off coupon code to reactivate your existing account for a Year or Month of Premium service is: IXRRFBPT which will be valid until October 26th. Just login with your existing email and password, click the Upgrade button on the lower right hand side of the page, and then enter the coupon code on the billing information page.

Too Bad!
The email that was just sent to you with the subject "ExpertFlyer - New Feature: Star Alliance Awards & Discount" was sent to you in error. We apologize, this email was only supposed to be sent to those who are former ExpertFlyer subscribers and the coupon will not work for your existing active account nor for a newly created account. We thank you for your continued support of ExpertFlyer. -The ExpertFlyer.com Team[/I]