ExpertFlyer & Why I Love It

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ExpertFlyer is an online tool that I’ve come to love over the past few years. As someone who books a lot of flights and loves to snag an upgrade to Business Class I’ve lost count of the number of times that the information on the site has improved my trips.

If you’re not a regular flyer then the paid membership of ExpertFlyer ($99/year) probably isn’t for you but you should still be able to make good use of the free Seat Alerts service the site offers (more on that later).

What Does ExpertFlyer Do?

ExpertFlyer actually does considerably more than I could explain in a single blog post without boring everyone into a stupor, so I’m just going to focus on the two things that I use it for most – if you want full details of ExpertFlyer’s capabilities then check out the site’s virtual tour page.

How useful ExpertFlyer can be for you will depend which airlines you fly and how much access to their information those airlines give ExpertFlyer – if you’re a Delta flyer then your luck is out, if you’re an American Airlines loyalist or a flyer of a host of other airlines then this could be something that you could use.

Award/Upgrade Searches & Alerts

This is probably the part of ExpertFlyer that I use the most and that has saved me a small fortune.

The site allows users to search award and upgrade inventory one any viable route you choose and, if award space or upgrades aren’t available on the dates you’re able to travel, ExpertFlyer allows to set alerts to keep you informed should that situation change.

Here’s an example of the search page I’m faced with when I choose to search award and upgrade inventory:

Because I have an account with ExpertFlyer the site pre-poulates some parts of the form with details that I’ve saved to my profile – like preferred departure airport (LAX) and preferred airline (American) – but these can be changed to whatever suits my needs.

ExpertFlyer allows you to view flights over a period of 7 days and allows you to search up to 9 classes of award/upgrade at one.

If I was to search for Business Class upgrades or award seats between LAX and JFK this is an example of what I would see:

Unsurprisingly (this is American Airlines after all!) there isn’t any “U Class” (Business Class Miles SAAver Award) availability or “C Class” (Business Class Upgrade) availability for the date shown but I can still view/search other dates or set up an alert (for specific flights) to let me know if availability changes.

There are few better sights in an email inbox than this…..

…because, when I see that in my email account, I know that an upgrade or award I’ve been hoping for has become available.

This is what the email often looks like:

As it happens, this was an upgrade alert for a flight I reviewed earlier this year (American Airlines 767 Business Class (JFK-MXP)) and it ensured that I got to review an American Airlines Business Class product that I hadn’t yet tried.

My American Airlines 767 Business Class seat courtesy of an ExpertFlyer alert

Note: As I posted earlier in the year, British Airways Award & Upgrade Alerts are now available on ExpertFlyer.

Seat Alerts

These alerts can be set up even if you don’t have a paid subscription to ExpertFlyer and it was a seat alert that I received yesterday that prompted this blog post.

ExpertFlyer allows users to view seat maps of the aircraft flying whatever route they’ve searched for and, if the seat of your choice isn’t available, the site allows you to set alerts inc case something you find acceptable becomes available.

Take this example of an American Airlines A321 flight between LAX and JFK:

You’ll notice that the exit rows have already been allocated (bad news) but, if you use ExpertFlyer, you can set an alert to be informed if an exit row seat becomes available before check-in opens (someone may cancel their reservation, get upgraded etc…).

The Seat Alert option can be as detailed or as basic as the user wants – you can even chose to be alerted if a specific seat (say 11D) becomes available.

When it comes to Economy Class travel I like to do everything possible to snag an exit row seat to get the extra legroom that comes with it. At 6ft I’m not especially tall but I do have long legs and the ridiculous Economy Class seat pitch offered by a lot of the airlines nowadays is my idea of hell.

British Airways A320 Economy Class – the legroom looks better than it actually is!

If at all possible I will actively not book a flight if I can’t pre-select an exit row seat at the time of booking.

There are times, however, where practicalities of life trump the need for an exit row and one such example reared its head the other day.

I need to be out in Cyprus on a specific day in a few weeks time and, of the two British Airways flights out of Heathrow, only one had a semi-reasonable fare. Unfortunately, not only does this flight require me to be at the airport before 6am but there were no exit row seats available for selection at the time of booking.

I was looking at a 4+ hour flight on a cramped BA A320 and that’s not something that fills me with a great deal of happiness! Nevertheless I had no choice but to book the flight and to hope for the best.

I set up an ExpertFLyer alert for “any exit row seat” (I was in no position to be choosy!) and crossed my fingers.

Yesterday, this dropped into my inbox:

Success!

I wasted no time in logging in to my British Airways account where I could see my original seat selection…..

….and quickly changed if for something a lot more acceptable:

That simple alert from ExpertFlyer has just made a potentially very uncomfortable trip a lot more comfortable…and I could have set that alert even if I didn’t have a paid ExpertFlyer subscription.

Bottom Line

There are a lot of things that ExpertFlyer can help out with but the two I’ve outlined above are, to me, easily the most useful.

The number of times an ExpertFlyer alert has helped me snag an elusive upgrade or allowed me to select a flight on which I knew an upgrade would clear immediately, means that the $99 annual fee has been well worth it.

On top of that, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve managed to grab hard to get award seats thanks to an ExpertFlyer alert and saved myself a considerable amount of cash in the process.

Like I said right at the beginning of this piece: ExpertFlyer really isn’t for everyone and a paid subscription is totally unnecessary if you’re only an occasional flyer – but if you fly more than a couple of times a year, at the very least the free seat alerts should be somethnig you should look into.