Expert Flyer, a popular online resource for frequent flyers, has been acquired by Red Ventures. With Expert Flyer sold, significant changes are expected to the service which has remained largely unchanged since it was launched 14 years ago.
Red Ventures, the new owner of Expert Flyer, is a large American marketing company. It already owns US blog The Points Guy and various US financial services brands.
When the Expert Flyer takeover was revealed last Tuesday, the new owner announced it would immediately increase the maximum number of active alerts for premium subscribers. It was previously only possible to have up to 30 seat, award or flight availability alerts in place at one time. This number has now increased to 200 alerts.
Expert Flyer is promising that there will be other improvements to the service over time, such as new features and a website redesign. An email sent to Expert Flyer subscribers states that the new owners “plan on continuing to run the ExpertFlyer service as it is currently, while expanding and growing it in ways we could not have before on our own, all without a price increase.” Given Red Ventures’ background in data analytics, there could be some promising improvements to come.
But not all AFF members are convinced that this change is for the better. serfty opines that the user experience on Expert Flyer could deteriorate if the new owners try to over-simplify the website and/or increase revenue.
Unggghhh …I have always appreciated E/F’s simple low bandwidth no frills web design with straitforward forms and results display along with few ads.Sadly I can see that changing significantly as the new owners increase efforts to recoup the cost of their purchase and monetize further.
Other members are equally sceptical…
Sad to see EF being “enhanced”, although nothing stays the same forever. Agree it has been good value, and I have used it to great effect hunting out flights with award seats, and checking seat occupancy/availability.
Given the new owners also own The Points Guy I can sense a flood of Chase credit card ads coming!
Expert Flyer is one of our favourite online tools for frequent flyers. It offers many features including the ability to check flight availability, find award seats and upgrade space, view real-time airline seat maps and lots of other useful information, such as Minimum Connection Times. Expert Flyer features such as alerts can also prove invaluable if you travel a lot.
Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Expert Flyer has been sold
