Haven't got a clue

[Moopere]

The subject relating to me of course

I've got an EF trial going and I think my lack of technical knowledge is hampering my ability to actually understand and utilise EF in any way other than 'gee whizz' and 'oh wow'.

For example, I'm snooping about in assistance of a trip to fiji I'm planning for a couple of months from now, I see a QF flight with J seats 300$ cheaper then the cheapest flight I have found on the QF site. I see the fare basis, "D2F" which is meaningless to me, but outside of that (and perhaps its the key information I'm failing to understand), I don't see how I can access these cheaper seats ... I obviously can't book them via the QF website as they don't appear there.


When moving to Flight Availability, I don't see the link between the information displayed and the previous information screen - Fare information ... where is the 300$ cheaper fare now? Do I need to search somehow for the fare basis again?

For those wondering why I'm even bothering given a lack of basic flight operations knowledge, I do have an interest, becoming a hobby actually, of getting into the best seat (for my money) on the best metal at a time of day which suits me and avoids the use of LCC's wherever possible - flight dates usually have significant flexibility up until the point that hotels are booked.

Am I just too inexperienced at this point to really get any tangible benefit from a complex tool like EF? I'm very open to this as a strong possibility.

Note that my personality is usually shy of gambling. I'm always happy to get upgrades (at hotels too), but if I want a J seat I'll book one rather than play the lottery and book Y hoping for a J upgrade possibility. I like known minimum quantities.

Probably I'm feeling time pressured and its a steep learning curve. Only got 5d (4 left now) to trial the thing. Any opinions on whether a slow learner like me is likely better off taking a punt, getting a Pro subscription for a year and learning its use by osmosis?

 

[serfty]

E/F shows the base fare; it does not show the inclusions or +++.

Do a dummy booking on Qantas and when on the "Step 4 - Review your flights", click on the underlying 'hotlink' for the fare. You will then see the base fare plus a total of the taxes. Quite often the base fare matches one from expert flyer.

Another thing to do is find the booking class on the QF booking, see here: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....rogram/qf-booking-class-22124.html#post364718

... you may find it is D.

Also, look here at ITA: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/

Try to duplicate your routings/dates and see what it returns (if you look, find and click the "View itinerary and fare details" link, you will see a breakdown of fares/taxes/levies/charges.

 

[Moopere]

E/F shows the base fare; it does not show the inclusions or +++.

Do a dummy booking on Qantas and when the total fare comes up, clcik on the underlying 'hotlink'. You will then see the base fare plus a total of the taxes. Quite often the base fare matches one from expert flyer.

Good tip, and yes, you are quite correct, its exactly the same price. I was led astray on this by a link at the top of the Fare Information page on EF which says "View fares Without Surcharges". I assumed therefore that the EF pricing included surcharging ... Of course, taxes were hiding in the equation as you rightly point out.

Another thing to do is find the booking class on the QF booking, see here: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....rogram/qf-booking-class-22124.html#post364718

... you may find it is D.

Yes, indeed. D-D, D-D.

So, D class all the way. This is QF's discount Business class right? (I've looked here FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Lowest fare class available for purchase). Why would I be looking at this? To try and spot any sneaky Y class legs that might have slipped in?

Do I need to worry about fare basis at all, as a complete newbie? Its mentioned a lot in the EF documentation, which implies its important, but I can't understand why I need to care.

Also, look here at ITA: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/

Try to duplicate your routings/dates and see what it returns (if you look, find and click the "View itinerary and fare details" link, you will see a breakdown of fares/taxes/levies/charges.

I have tended to use the above link for planning and booking - for a casual user like myself the thought occurs that it may be useful enough and easy enough to just stick with this and for now forget about EF. However, I have noticed that the aircraft type is quite often wrong on the Matrix site, so far, when theres been a variation, the listed type on the QF site has been more accurate.

So, fare chasing seems adequtely covered by the Matrix site, which then logically leads me to the airlines own home pages for more accurate information and possibly to book as well.

So what am I left doing with the EF tool? The only thing that comes to mind is checking seat maps and availability. Seat maps are hard to deal with at airline home pages, its a lot of work to nut out from the airline what version of what plane is flying and then cross check that with seatguru. Also availability of seating is difficult. As my dates are usually very flexible I'd rather not snag the very last seat on an aircraft thats in the worst possible position - better for me to know early and book another day/flight.

Don't get me wrong, this last, the view of seating before booking, is alone probably worth the yearly subscription to me (so long as its useable and relatively accurate). I get the feeling though that I'd be using a calibrated surgical instrument as a hammer by so doing.

Is the true value of EF really seat availability and upgrade availability?

 

[serfty]

Seat maps are a good use; certainly scoping whats available before booking QF is quite useful.

The ability to save searches is quite useful as well. You can keep an eye on your upcoming flights.

Soon enough I'm on QF8 with an upgrade request to J or W, eyeing off Zone 1 F seating. I'm already in a PE sat with Y service, but there's a few skybeds available for PE and there's still ½ the 14 first class (in Business) seats unallocated.

If you have gold membership of AFF, you can get a 15% discount on an annual subscription.

 

[Moopere]

Thanks Serfty, I really appreciate your sharing the knowledge.

The ability to save searches is quite useful as well. You can keep an eye on your upcoming flights.

Sorry, here I am again with the 'newbie' questions, but I was upfront about that in my first post... What am I wanting to keep an eye on? I assume all this looking about is pre-booking? Perhaps I am incorrect in that assumption?

Soon enough I'm on QF8 with an upgrade request to J or W, eyeing off Zone 1 F seating. I'm already in a PE sat with Y service, but there's a few skybeds available for PE and there's still ½ the 14 first class (in Business) seats unallocated.

How does this help though? If you know there are half the first class seating still left to sell, what can you do with that knowledge? Does simply knowing this and winking at the check-in attendant open the door to better seating (at a cost or free...either way)? I feel like I'm missing a really obvious but important point.

If you have gold membership of AFF, you can get a 15% discount on an annual subscription.

I do, and I'm tempted to give it a go. I been playing with it all day and I think I'm slowly starting to see some of the subtlety. Its a steep curve as I mentioned earlier.

What I've been doing today is:


- finding the most economical fares in the class I'm interested in on EF (Fare Information), Business PER-NAN for example,

I see a flight I mentioned earlier for $2284 with QF, booking class D, Fare basis D2F, business cabin.

I don't see how I can use this information to find actual flights though. I can poke about on the Matrix site, and indeed, eventually I started to bump into D2F fares, and the price matched (thanks for your tips on howto do this) but its a big job, all this semi-random clicking about. Strange that you can't search any of these engines against fare basis (or can you?)


Anyway, using the Matrix site, eventually find flights against the right fare basis, then

- Back to EF to have a look at the Flight Availability page. Check the flight number found on Matrix and see whats going on with the aircraft (Matrix often mistaken here) and the seatmap/availability.

Baby steps, but some knowledge here is helpful, I'm assuming EF is likely to be more accurate than Matrix. I base that assumption on nothing though, I've simply noticed errors on the Matrix site whereas so far EF and QF seem to agree.

 

[serfty]

If the front end 'fills up' I can withdraw my upgrade application - am already in an exit PE seat.

 

[Moopere]

If the front end 'fills up' I can withdraw my upgrade application - am already in an exit PE seat.

Is that important to do? I guess if the F seating fills then your upgrade would be in the J section which you may not like as much ... is that the idea? I can see the value if so.

So, to round up, the real value add of EF is mainly around upgrade/award opportunties? I know there is a wealth of other information presented, but by and large most of the other stuff (pricing, flight detail, seat maps) is available elsewhere for free. Whats difficult or impossible for me to find elsewhere is actual seat availability, before booking. The alerts feature obviously goes hand in hand with this and I assume could really help with upgrades.

 

[serfty]

As to alerts, the award availability one can be useful. e.g. I have used it to upgrade on an AA flight ORD to Rome.

Another trick is to set an 'availability' alert on a seat you have allocated for yourself. If this became free and E/F detects this a notification re this is sent - giving a heads up perhaps earlier than would ordinarily happen.