How to Use ExpertFlyer Like a Pro

Over the years, ExpertFlyer has become a tool that I can’t live without.

Whether I’m researching upcoming trips, booking award travel, or running into flight delays and cancellations while I’m on the road, ExpertFlyer has always come in handy and has saved me countless hours in a hobby that can often get quite time-consuming.

Considering the relative dearth of information on flight loads, award space, fare codes, etc. outside of paid services like this, it’s quite astounding just how far-reaching ExpertFlyer’s capabilities really are. 

Let’s take a look at all the things you can accomplish with this wonderful service.

ExpertFlyer Pricing & Features

A subscription to ExpertFlyer’s Pro Premium service costs US$99.99 for the year, and there is a free five-day trial that you can use to play around with all the features and see if you want to commit for a full year. A Pro Basic subscription costs US$4.99 per month, but has limited functionality.

You can in theory burn through multiple free trials by using multiple email addresses, but that’s not really conducive to setting up seat alerts that ping you whenever an open seat is found, which is one of ExpertFlyer’s most useful features.

Instead, if you find yourself put off by the upfront cost, I recommend splitting the US$99.99 annual subscription with other people. Paying US$100 a year for ExpertFlyer is already worthwhile; paying US$20, for example, would be an absolute steal.

Sign Up for ExpertFlyer

If you’re signing up for ExpertFlyer, consider doing so through the Prince of Travel affiliate link, which helps to support the website.

Click here to sign up for ExpertFlyer.

ExpertFlyer’s suite of features are divided into eight key sections, accessible via the sidebar on the left. Let’s walk through some of the most important features one by one.

Awards & Upgrades: Searching for Award Availability

ExpertFlyer’s greatest feature is no doubt its ability to conduct searches for airline award space using the Awards & Upgrades function.

Say you’re planning an Aeroplan redemption for two people, from Vancouver to Southeast Asia, and you’d really like to fly with either ANA or Turkish Airlines on the long-haul segments in business class.

Flying via Istanbul to Bali, you’d have back-to-back segments in Turkish Airlines’s revamped business class cabin, and you’d also be able to add a stopover of up to 45 days in Turkey for an additional 5,000 Aeroplan points.

Unlike the award search engines on Aeroplan, United.com, or other frequent flyer programs, which can search across all airlines in the alliance at once, ExpertFlyer requires you to specify the airline whose award space you’re searching.

That’s why it comes in handiest when you already have a route in mind and would like to search for award space on that particular route. In order to find out which airlines operate which routes, use tools like FlightConnections.

However, the added benefit of ExpertFlyer is that it allows you to search for up to a week’s worth of dates at once.

As you can see in the screenshot above, using the “+/- 3 days” parameter effectively lets you search for an entire week at a time – a huge time saver compared to clicking through individual days on other search engines.

Depending on the airline, you might also be asked to specify how many seats you’re looking for, and then ExpertFlyer will come back with either a “Yes” or a “No”. As you can see, this is not the case with Turkish Airlines, which shows how many seats are available for business class award space in the search results.

Our search results show four business class award seats with Turkish Airlines available. Indeed, a search result on Aeroplan confirms this.

For other airlines, such as ANA, you’ll have to specify the number of seats desired in the search, and you’ll see “Yes” or “No” in the search results. For this example, suppose that you’d like to fly from Vancouver to Singapore via Tokyo with ANA.

Since you’ve specified one seat, the results tell you if there is one award seat available for your desired routing.

If you change the number of seats to two, the same results now show “No”, indicating that there’s only one award seat available. Again, this is confirmed on Aeroplan, which displays one seat available.

For certain airlines, ExpertFlyer will also search for space on any other routes operated by the airline that can get you to your destination. For a search from Vancouver to Tokyo with ANA, ExpertFlyer has searched for YVR–NRT, but also SFO–HND, SEA–NRT, LAX–NRT, etc.

In this case, there aren’t business class award seats with ANA available departing from Vancouver, but there is one seat available between Seattle and Tokyo with ANA. So, while you wouldn’t be able to get to Tokyo on a direct flight, you could add a short flight to Seattle and still get to fly with ANA in business class for the long-haul segment.

Going forward iteratively in the same manner, you can use ExpertFlyer to verify award space for all the remaining segments of your desired trip.

Seat Alerts: Notifications When Seats Open Up

Suppose you’ve crafted a near-perfect Aeroplan trip, but there is just one segment of your trip that you weren’t able to find. Using the examples in the above section, you are really opposed to making a connection via Seattle to get to Tokyo, and you insist on the direct flight from Vancouver.

This is where the ability to set availability alerts comes in extremely handy.

Simply pull up the ANA search results again, and click the “Create Flight Alert” icon (the exclamation mark in a box) next to the flight for which ExpertFlyer is currently showing a “No” in availability. Specify the class of service, as well as how many seats you’re looking for, then click “Verify and Create”.

ExpertFlyer will then check award space on your behalf continuously and send you an email once it opens up. Once you get this email, that’s your cue to go ahead and finalize or make changes to your booking.

Besides helping you continuously check for hard-to-obtain award space, other potential uses of seat alerts might include:

• Monitoring for award seats that typically get released on a set schedule, such as Lufthansa First Class seats at T-15

• Letting you know if the amount of seats remaining falls below a certain amount, which may be useful when you’re monitoring an award flight closely, but not quite ready to book it yet

One last thing to say about the award availability and seat alert functions: while ExpertFlyer’s coverage of major airlines is pretty comprehensive (including pretty much all Star Alliance members), there are a few notable absentees, such as Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines.

Flight Availability: How Many Open Seats Are There?

ExpertFlyer’s ability to search for Flight Availability is distinct from its award availability function. It basically lets you know how many seats are remaining for sale on any given flight, breaking down the remaining seats by fare code.

I tend to use this function for three main purposes:

• Looking at passenger loads when I’m hoping for the airline to release additional award seats (perhaps for an elusive last-minute award)

• In the case of IRROPS (delays and cancellations), to search for available alternative flights

• Searching for available eUpgrade space on Air Canada flights, to upgrade from economy to business class

Checking Passenger Loads

For example, airlines like Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific often limit the amount of First Class award space they release in advance, and only release further seats within a few weeks of departure if they haven’t been sold already. Using the Flight Availability function, you can track how many First Class seats remain unsold on your flight, and therefore how many award seats are likely to open up.

For example, if someone to snag last-minute award space on Japan Airlines First Class in March, they might run the below search for the number of open First Class seats on the Los Angeles–Tokyo route.

Then they might surmise that it’s more likely for two First Class awards to be released on March 4 or 6, when there are seven seats remaining, than on March 5, when there are only three seats remaining on one of the flights.

Of course, the Flight Availability situation can always change as other travellers make and cancel their bookings, so the idea is that you’d check back continuously and also check other departure gateways if you were eyeing an elusive award.

During IRROPS

Another situation when the Flight Availability function will prove invaluable is when IRROPS (flight delays and cancellations) occur. If you’re experiencing a flight delay or cancellation, the usual rebooking rules and fees no longer apply, and you can ask the airline to re-route you on flights of your choosing, as long as there are seats remaining.

Whenever I’m faced with an IRROPS situation, I find incredible value in having ExpertFlyer’s Flight Information feature at my fingertips, as it allows me to quickly determine the most convenient alternative flights that still have seats available that I can ask to be rebooked on.

eUpgrade Space

Another useful feature with the Flight Availability tool is to search for eUpgrade space on Air Canada flights. As we’ve covered in detail, one of the most powerful ways to maximize Aeroplan points is to use eUpgrades earned through Aeroplan Elite Status with an Economy (Latitude) redemption to instantly confirm a seat in business class.

To find flights on which there is eUpgrade space available, you’ll want to look for availability of “R” in the search results.

For example, suppose you’d like to fly from Vancouver to Toronto on a lie-flat seat. The cost to book in business class to begin with is quite high, so you opt to use eUpgrades to save points.

In the search fields, you specify the city pair, date, and airline. Since we’re only interested in “R” eUpgrade space, we specify “R” in the “Only Show Class(es)” parameter.

The results then show you which flights have “R” space available, and which don’t.

These results tell you that you can use eUpgrades to confirm an upgrade to business class on AC182, AC112, AC114, and AC116, but you’ll be waitlisted for the upgrade on AC100, AC108, and AC110.

Indeed, the same search on Aeroplan confirms the Expert Flyer results. Below, we see that AC128 and AC116 show “Eligible for eUpgrade”, while AC108 shows “You will be waitlisted”.

On AC116, if you were to book an Economy (Latitude) fare for 32,400 Aeroplan points and use four eUpgrades to instantly confirm a seat in business class, you’d have saved 76,660 Aeroplan points as opposed to booking directly in business class at 109,300 points.

Flight Timetables/Status/Details: Some Basic Information

The Flight Timetables, Flight Status, and Flight Details lookup functions mostly access basic information that’s also widely available with other online resources, so I personally only use these functions on rare occasions.

Flight Timetables allows you to search for all the flights that operate a given route. For example, here’s a sample of the search for all flights on the NYLON route, one of the world’s busiest, for later this year:

(Note that ExpertFlyer tends to include codeshare flights among its search results, which may not be very useful since it’s just a duplicate of the original flight by the true operating carrier. You can tell when the marketing carrier’s two-letter code is followed by the true operating carrier in parentheses.)

Flight Status can be a very useful tool because it provides more information about a flight than what you’d get on other public websites like FlightRadar or FlightAware.

In particular, after you’ve looked up the basic status information of a certain flight, click “View Comments” to read the technical comments, which can be very interesting for a flight that’s en route, delayed, or cancelled.

For a flight that’s en route, you’ll get to see when the plane left the gate, took off, is estimated to land, and is expected to arrive at the gate, among some other interesting notes about the flight.

In the case of a delay or cancellation, the technical comments can also be used to identify the cause of the issue (maintenance, crew, weather, etc.) and determine if you’re eligible for compensation under the Canadian Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), EU261, or other conventions. When filing a claim with the airline, this information may differ than the reason provided at the airport, which may work out well in your favour.

Finally, the Flight Details function is a very simple tool that brings up the most basic information about a flight, so there isn’t too much to say about it.

Seat Map: Ideal Insight for Aircraft Configurations

The Seat Map is another nifty feature that I make use of quite often for two main purposes:

• To identify which variant/configuration of a certain aircraft is being used for my flight

• To look at which seats are still available when I’m choosing my seats

In the first scenario, airlines often do a bad job of distinguishing which routes are operated by which of their planes, and ExpertFlyer allows you to cut through the confusion and find out exactly which business class or First Class seat type you’ll be getting.

For example, let’s say that you’re thinking of booking a Qatar Airways business class flight that’s operated by a Boeing 777. It’s only by looking up the Seat Map that you’ll be able to tell if you’re on the reconfigured 777s with the luxurious Qsuites.

…or their significantly older 777s with an outdated 2-2-2 business class product.

The same is true if you’re trying to differentiate between ANA’s new “The Room” vs. their older staggered seating, Japan Airlines’s Apex Suite vs. their reverse herringbone, TAP Air Portugal’s older A330s vs. their newer A330-900neos, etc.

You can also use the Seat Map to monitor which seats are available on a given flight. You’ll notice that the feature is also linked to SeatGuru.com, which provides comprehensive reviews on the quality of individual seats on any given flight, marking any seats that have been designated as Good, Poor, or Mixed, and providing the reason for such an assessment.

Seat Alerts

If you’re eyeing an ideal seat onboard a certain premium cabin, and you’re hoping to book it as soon as it’s no longer blocked by the airline or it’s vacated by a fellow passenger, then you can take advantage of the Seat Alerts feature to check for this seat constantly and ping you when it’s available.

For example, let’s say you’re booked on Singapore’s 787 business class and you want to secure the bassinet seats, which have additional personal space or a bassinet if you’re flying with an infant.

Using the “Create Seat Alert” button on the right side of the search result, you can specify the exact seats that you’d like ExpertFlyer to keep checking on your behalf.

The feature works in the exact same way as the flight availability alerts that we covered previously, sending you an email notification as soon as the seat is open and bookable so that you can take action straight away.

Fare Information: Airfare, Behind the Scenes

If your travel style involves regularly hunting for low fares or “mistake fares”, or if you generally book revenue fares in addition to award travel, then ExpertFlyer’s Fare Information section is a treasure trove of insights.

For any given city pair, ExpertFlyer can pull up any airline’s published fares between the two cities, as well as their respective routing rules and fare rules.

For example, take this deal that was previously published on Secret Flying, a popular deals website.

Using the Fare Information function, you can quickly pull up the underlying fare code and its rules and restrictions, which will give you all the information on which dates you’re allowed to travel using this fare, how far in advance you must book, whether there’s a minimum/maximum stay restriction, whether a stopover is allowed, etc.

To search, you’ll want to enter the respective city pair, a set of dates that falls within the range of the advertised deal, and the operating airline:

The search returns the following list of fares. The list can seem rather complicated at first glance, but generally most “hot deals” correspond to the first few items on the list (which you can see are the cheapest base fares). Those are the ones that you’ll want to take a closer look at.

Sometimes, the website publishing a deal will also reveal the exact fare basis for the deal; otherwise, you can also look up this information using ITA Matrix.

For now, we’ve determined that the $563 TAP fare corresponds to the “OCADS10E” fare basis, so we’ll click on the “View Rules” and “View Routing” buttons on the right-hand side of the fare in question in order to pull up the details.

The full list of Fare Rules is too long to be displayed, but here’s a selection of some major bits of information. The rules tell us that there’s no advance reservation requirement, there are no minimum or maximum stay requirements, and that you can have one free stopover in either Lisbon or Porto on either the inbound or outbound segment.

That stopover can’t exceed 120 hours in length, which corresponds to TAP Air Portugal’s free five-day Portugal Stopover policy. That’s something useful to know about this fare that you wouldn’t get just from looking at Secret Flying!

Other sections of the Fare Rules that you might wish to pay attention to include:

• Penalties: Change and cancellation rules and fees

• Rule Application: Sometimes the rules will specify that a certain fare is only valid if booked by a certain date; this can be a cue that airfare on the route will increase after that date, once this low fare expires

• Combinations: Determines whether the fare may be combined with other fares on a single ticket, which is essential knowledge if you’re looking into the art of fuel-dumping

Meanwhile, in addition to the Fare Rules, we can also take a look at the Routing Rules:

The routing rules confirm that this particular fare can only be applied if you’re travelling from Montreal to London via Lisbon or Porto. (That’s how the code of “YMQ–OPO/LIS–LON” is interpreted.)

If you try to add other connections, you’ll “break” the fare and cause a new fare to be applied, and thus won’t be able to benefit from the low price on this fare.

If this all feels very complicated to you, that’s because airline fare mechanisms are inherently a complex beast, and require time to be understood thoroughly.

For now, you should keep in mind that ExpertFlyer’s Fare Information tab is your one-stop shop for additional information on revenue fares. 

Travel Information: Useful Miscellany

Lastly, I often use a handful of features under the Travel Information tab for a variety of purposes.

The Minimum Connection Times feature is very useful for verifying that your planned connecting itinerary is valid. I’ve written in more detail about using this feature, which you’ll need to check every now and then if you’re in the habit of planning complex trips.

The Interline Agreements feature allows you to tell which airlines have partnerships with which other airlines, which can be useful during IRROPS when rebooking alternative flights.

To take one example from my previous travels, I was once taking a delayed Lufthansa flight en route to Moscow. While Lufthansa originally wanted to rebook me on one of their own flights, I looked up their interline partners and saw that Aeroflot was one of them, so I was able to ask to be rebooked on a more favourable Aeroflot flight instead.

The Visa, Health & Passport feature gives you insight to the visa information that the airlines will be checking prior to your journey.

While this feature is worth double-checking before your journey during normal times, it’ll be particularly useful for keeping track of which countries are imposing or loosening border restrictions against your specified nationality during the era of COVID-19.

For example, here’s the search result for Canadian citizens heading to China. Note the specific information about travel during the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, along with key supplementary information.

Conclusion

Whether your travel style focuses on award travel or revenue fares, you’re certain to find incredible value in ExpertFlyer’s comprehensive suite of features, and I hope you’ll find this guide useful in getting started.

Between the availability search function, the ability to set alerts, and the variety of behind-the-scenes information at your fingertips, ExpertFlyer is a key tool for those who frequently plan, book, and take flights around the world. Familiarizing yourself with it will help you take your understanding of airfare, flight schedules, and flight availability to a higher level.

Sign Up for ExpertFlyer

If you’re signing up for ExpertFlyer, consider doing so through the Prince of Travel affiliate link, which helps to support the website.

Click here to sign up for ExpertFlyer.