Expertflyer - showing different availability on the same flight/same date!

[Keith009]

I'm searching for L availability for SYD-HNL on QF or AA.

When I search for 'SYD-HNL', it shows L0 for both flight numbers.
However when I search for 'MEL-HNL' on the same date, it shows L7 for AA and L9 for QF on the SYD-HNL segment.

So is there actually L availability for those dates or not?
Is it a case of yield mgmt blocking L seats for ex-SYD but leaving them bookable for ex-MEL married segments?
Or is expertflyer broken?

 

[thadocta]

Is it a case of yield mgmt blocking L seats for ex-SYD but leaving them bookable for ex-MEL married segments?

That is my guess, try going into the QF and AA websites and see what they give you, if they show availability SYD-HNL then it would be EF that is broken, if not then it is yield management practicing their mysterious voodoo.

Dave

 

[Keith009]

Same situation when I tried the return 'HNL-SYD' vs 'HNL-SYD-MEL.' Hmm. Will see if my TA has any luck when he gets in tomo...

edited to add - this is confusing. Now I'm staring at both L0 and L9 on the same page depending on which pair of flights I look at (both are QF coded).

 

[oz_mark]

An explanation of how Yield Management works on these combinations is here: Qantas Industry Sales Site - Policies and Procedures - Combining Flights

 

[NM]

Its likely that QF initially allocated a number of L seats for SYD-HNL and a number of L seats for the through sale of MEL-HNL. The SYD-HNL has sold out but the MEL-HNL allocation has not yet sold out.

This is a common yield management operation. I had this happen once looking for D seats from BNE to LAX. There only D I could find was MEL-LAX via AKL. But there was no D on the AKL-LAX segment alone. I could get BNE-AKL in D, bit not from there to LAX. But I could get BNE-MEL and the MEL-LAX via AKL on the same flight. So it must have cost QF more to fly me down to MEL and then to AKL to take the same AKL-MEL flight that it would have been to fly me BNE-AKL-LAX. But I earned more SCs going the long way .

 

[Keith009]

Kewl - so expertflyer does take into account married segment logic. Cheers.

 

[Keith009]

Ok I'm now confused yet again. Why is EF showing conflicting info on the same query results page [MEL-HNL 09/19/08]:

QF446/443 L9
QF456/QF3 L9
QF450/QF3 L9
QF452/QF3 L0

Obviously some flights qualify as 'married segments' for the purpose of ex-MEL allocation and others don't?

And on the same day I'm confirmed on QF434 and waitlisted on QF3. I wanted to stretch out my time in the SYD Flounge but obviously I need to get my TA to try one of the above pairs of flights showing availability to get a seat on the ex-MEL allocation?

Unfortunately the AA codes are L0 throughout.

 

[Evan]

I see the same as you just see when booking flights through our corp agent, some and some flights will simply not be a married pair even though and earlier and a later one will be.
I never worried much about it and just booked one 15-30 mins different (either earlier or later).
I thought it may be due to the size of the feeder flight (ie 767 vs 737) or the time of the day (eg peak hour flights) but i could not really make a connection that made sense.
E

 

[Reggie]

An explanation of how Yield Management works on these combinations is here: Qantas Industry Sales Site - Policies and Procedures - Combining Flights

Qantas and British Airways segment flights in order to provide a viable level of availability and fare options across several markets. By combining or splitting flight segments, this artificially restricts choices and flexibility in those markets.

Flights that are booked to circumvent through availability will be cancelled without warning

Does this mean where I have booked my flights QF9 MEL-SIN and QF9 SIN-LHR to get availability on a *ONE4, they can and will cancel them?

 

[Dave Noble]

Does this mean where I have booked my flights QF9 MEL-SIN and QF9 SIN-LHR to get availability on a *ONE4, they can and will cancel them?

No that is ok.

What would be an issue would be if , for example, you wanted to fly MEL-SIN

MEL-SIN showed D0 but ADL-MEL-SIN showed D5 on the ADL-MEL flight and D5 on MEL-SIN ; you then book the 2 flights and then cancel the ADL-MEL sector leaving you booked on MEL-SIN. In this case you are liable to get the MEL-SIN cancelled

if you want to fly MEL-LHR, whether you book MEL-SIN-LHR or MEL-LHR makes no odds

Dave

 

[thadocta]

if you want to fly MEL-LHR, whether you book MEL-SIN-LHR or MEL-LHR makes no odds

Not true - perhaps you missed this bit:

Qantas Yield Management will not circumvent availability by combining two separate markets of the same flight number (eg QF1 SYD/BKK and QF1 BKK/LHR) into a through flight number (eg QF1 SYD/LHR) when the through flight is not available.

Based on that, if the through flight (SYD-LHR) is not available, you cannot book it as SYD-BKK and then BKK-LHR.

So I think that booking QF 9 in two stages with the same flight will be a potential problem.

Dave

 

[Reggie]

I just checked my booking, and Qantas have circumvented their own rules, and merged my QF9 flight to MEL-LHR, when there was no availability for that one, So less points and SC's now . OTOH no unadvised cancelation of flights:-|

 

[Keith009]

I guess EF was playing tricks with me. The TA couldn't find any availability even after searching for 'married' segments. But I've changed my date of travel now and managed to book the AA flight numbers.

I just checked my booking, and Qantas have circumvented their own rules, and merged my QF9 flight to MEL-LHR, when there was no availability for that one, So less points and SC's now . OTOH no unadvised cancelation of flights:-|

You can try rebooking to QF9 connecting to BA12, or QF9 connecting to QF31?

 

[qf unfort]

An explanation of how Yield Management works on these combinations is here: Qantas Industry Sales Site - Policies and Procedures - Combining Flights

OT here, so apologies (Administrator, please move as appropriate), but does anyone know if other airlines have similar 'agent only' sites that the general public can access? I realise much of this Qantas site is only available post log in, but there's lots of interesting info on there, including apparently, notification of upcoming sales before they're published on the public site. Does anyone have any links to similar sites at other airlines? Thanks.