Shareholder

I have just discovered the itn site and want to maximize it as a tool to examine booking levels on select flights. From reading various postings, it appears that there is a "professional" version which shows actual availability (not just "y" or "n") by class of service.

Can someone please tell me how to enter this level of the service. Or direct me to older topic strands that discuss this. (The search engine doesn't appear to be working.) Thanks.

KenHamer

Edit your itn profile, and you'll see a question regarding "expert mode." Set that to yes/on, exit from itn completely, then re-enter. You should see fare classes for each flight. It's not 100% accurate however, and sometimes is confusing or misleading. But it's better than nothing.

Regards,

Ken Hamer

ALW

And then when you try to book a flight, it doesn't actually tell you the fare code, just the fare rules.

But I still use it more than any other engine.

andrew

Gabriel

It's also great for pricing multi-cities itineraries. Plus you can get seat maps and choose your seats! I love it too!

Shareholder

Thanks guys. I have only been browsing the site, so did not register. Will do that tonight. Obviously, the 100K oneworld has made this an indispensible tool.

Shareholder

I've now gone back in and completed the registration process, and selected the "expert" mode. Now I have to figure out how to interpret the codes. I assume each class is followed by the number of available seats, but most seem to read "7" or "0". I'll check out FAQ tomorrow. Thanks for the tip, everyone.

KenHamer

If you figure the codes out, let us know.

The numbers do not directly indicate the number seats available in that class, other than 0 means none, and 7 means available. I've seen J7 when there was only one J class seat left, although I suppose it could have been oversold. But given that there are only 10 J seats on an F28, it seemed improbable. I think the only other number I have seen is 4.

Regards,

Ken Hamer

ALW

I was at a travel agent the other day, and watching the screen over her shoulder. Lots of 7 and 4 and 0. She told me 7 meant 7 or more, 0 meant unavailable, and 4 meant 4.

I agree that the stated availability often does not turn into a ticketable fare on itn.

andrew

Adman

My understanding, which I have some degree of certainty in, is as follows:

The numbers are used by all reservations systems, not just ITN. (If you call American, for example, they can't tell you if there are more than 7 seats available in any given fare class.) 7 means there are 7 or more seats available in the indicated fare class. Less than 7 indicates the actual number of seats available for sale in that fare class, and 0 means 0.

Depending on how far out you're looking, you'll see mostly 7s and 0s. If you look at a flight leaving in 10 days or so, as I just did, you will see 2s and 3s as well.

(And, of course, there's the issue about whether the system is "resident" to the airline you're trying to book. ITN uses Apollo, I believe, which means that it should have "real time" availability for United, but won't necessarily agree with other airline's own reservations systems.)

Don't confuse, though, the ability to purchase a fare with the ability to secure an actual seat by looking at the seat map. For a lot of reasons, including overbooking, airport blocks, etc., the two numbers can be different, even in the premium classes.

Shareholder

Thanks, that seems to make sense. (And to think, I spent 3 summers while at college working AC reservations in Toronto, but in those days we still had a punch card for every passenger booking, and every flight was arranged in little filing boxes holding a month's bookings.)

Tolarian Wind

Just about every airline now participates with the major CRS systems using their "Direct or Total" access system where the display of seats is real time, real inventory. When a res agent or web system displays an availability screen it should be accurate as of the moment the request was made. If you (or an agent) sit for a few minutes or more before actually sending the request to actually book/reserve the seat the actual inventory can very well have changed so you get an "unavailable" response. This is especially true when viewing a display that shows only 1 or 2 seats for a particular class.

If you are looking for an L seat (god knows why if your on DL!) and it shows 0 and K and above are all at 7, I reccomend starting over, or waiting an hour and trying again. The yield management works in strange ways. I once saw 0 in L class, booked several full Y tickets, and the L inventory jumped to 4.

TW