Seats.aero - a useful tool for finding Qantas & Velocity reward availability

[AFF Editor]

Seats.aero has recently added support for both Virgin Australia Velocity and Qantas Frequent Flyer.

We've written a guide explaining how to use this tool, which you can read here:

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/qantas-velocity-availability-seats-aero/

Feel free to leave a comment or discuss Seats.aero in this thread!

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Another benefit that I just stumbled across:
If you’re searching for seats available through one program (say QFF), the results also show the points & $’s required by other programs that can deliver the same seat.

e.g.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

But it looks like there’s also another fault…
It appears that even in Pro Mode, it can’t distinguish how many seats are available via QFF program. So, for someone searching for 2 seats (like me), it’s going to throw up a lot of false positives…

refer:

 

[CaptainCurtis]

Another benefit that I just stumbled across:
If you’re searching for seats available through one program (say QFF), the results also show the points & $’s required by other programs that can deliver the same seat.

e.g.
View attachment 338066

Noticed this as well. Booking QF metal with AA points often considerably cheaper than with QF points. Wasn't aware of that.

 

[Gold Member]

Noticed this as well. Booking QF metal with AA points often considerably cheaper than with QF points. Wasn't aware of that.

Booking anything to anywhere is almost always considerably cheaper with any other airline compared to Qantas Frequent Flyer Program. True for both Points and carrier charges as well.

 

[Bryce]

So much for a year in advance, a search for Qantas Oceania to Europe only yields results up to November.

 

[MELso]

It saved my bacon with some Avianca LifeMiles I bought a week ago.

I'd intended to fly YYZ-DEL-MEL on AI in F and J, but that proved to be a phantom award, leaving me saddled with 100K Lifemiles. Then booked YYZ-DEL-SIN in a panic as that was what bookable after buying more miles, but didn't really want that itinerary given it would've required me to book a separate SIN-MEL award.

Once I'd calmed down, I bought a seats.aero sub, and managed to dig up IAD-AMS in Y on UA (using the North America to Europe field - there was IAD-BRU in J on SB, but this would have required buying more miles and I wanted to extricate myself from Lifemiles given its poor J availability). It also found AMS-BKK in J on BR (using a Europe to Asia search) and BKK-MEL in Y (using Asia to Oceania).

While much of the itinerary is in Y (and thus not the best use of the points I bought), it got me out of a bind, and in hindsight, I should have purchased it before my initial purchase.

 

[MELso]

So much for a year in advance, a search for Qantas Oceania to Europe only yields results up to November.

seats.aero is set up to search segment by segment; it doesn't really 'do' married segments. Your best bet is to search Oceania to Asia and Asia to Europe.

 

[levelnine]

So much for a year in advance, a search for Qantas Oceania to Europe only yields results up to November.

You have to pay for the pro version to get a year in advance.

 

[Bryce]

Yes, I get that. This was using pro.
I found that it wasn't populating more than one page, however if I start inputting a date i.e. 2024-03 it would start populating around this criteria.

 

[papeto]

I tried searching flights from Oceana to Europe on velocity but it came up with nothing ? Does show availability to North America though.

 

[dandandan]

I was only just reading a similar article on the weekend; Which award search tool is best? and doing some analysis of what to use in addition to ExpertFlyer (not sure if it's working with Qantas again yet). I am thinking of subscribing to Seat.aero (which I'll do through the AFF link), however there is also some other free sites it appears like Pointsyeah, Roame and Seatspy which all do something similar, not sure if anyone else has used these however I need to do some more reading and testing.

 

[Mattg]

I tried searching flights from Oceana to Europe on velocity but it came up with nothing ? Does show availability to North America though.

I don't think there are any direct flights from Oceania to Europe on Velocity partner airlines? (It counts AUH and DOH as part of Asia.)

It generally only shows routes where there are direct flights.

 

[ozflier]

Maybe I am missing something with seats.aero.
To be fair some of these limitations have been mentioned and it depends on which airline you are interested in and which of its routes are included in the searches and alerts.
There are some positives but not if you are looking for flights in the USA / Canada say on American or Alaskan .
Some airlines include lot of their own domestic flights ( eg Qantas) but not many - most cover only those with an international destination or origin ( direct or non stop) eg United Airlines.
eg searches for American Airlines domestic services in the USA are basically not available .
The seats.aero Qantas search is good - if award seats are available , then up comes a window listing all award options with points and tax requirements . Not sure how much better it is vs Expertflyer ( which I already pay for ) used in combination with the QFF booking engine.
The seats.aero website says that
If you choose to purchase a Pro account, you can get access to more features. These include:

• Search for award availability up to a year in advance
• Access advanced filters including direct flights and minimum number of seats (this works with most but not all programs)
• Create unlimited award seat alerts

This works on some airlines eg Qantas but try Alaskan and there are plenty of rewards on offer but unless eg they are "E" or "T, they do not reflect what you can get on Qantas.
You can't set up an alert with Alaskan to show award availability for a certain date in the future expecting it to only show award flights - you just set an alert for flights on a certain day and out comes 10 -20 flights which you have to individually interrogate each flight to see if an award seat is available!
The "in real time" availability on Seats.aero check is handy - so often with QFF site , the award seats have disappeared by the time you speak to an agent.
Maybe, with experience, I will find seats.aero a bit more user friendly and helpful . To be fair, I am looking for specific routings but I'm not sure its worth 15 AUD a month .

 

[dandandan]

Maybe I am missing something with seats.aero.
To be fair some of these limitations have been mentioned and it depends on which airline you are interested in and which of its routes are included in the searches and alerts.
There are some positives but not if you are looking for flights in the USA / Canada say on American or Alaskan .
Some airlines include lot of their own domestic flights ( eg Qantas) but not many - most cover only those with an international destination or origin ( direct or non stop) eg United Airlines.
eg searches for American Airlines domestic services in the USA are basically not available .
The seats.aero Qantas search is good - if award seats are available , then up comes a window listing all award options with points and tax requirements . Not sure how much better it is vs Expertflyer ( which I already pay for ) used in combination with the QFF booking engine.
The seats.aero website says that
If you choose to purchase a Pro account, you can get access to more features. These include:

• Search for award availability up to a year in advance
• Access advanced filters including direct flights and minimum number of seats (this works with most but not all programs)
• Create unlimited award seat alerts

This works on some airlines eg Qantas but try Alaskan and there are plenty of rewards on offer but unless eg they are "E" or "T, they do not reflect what you can get on Qantas.
You can't set up an alert with Alaskan to show award availability for a certain date in the future expecting it to only show award flights - you just set an alert for flights on a certain day and out comes 10 -20 flights which you have to individually interrogate each flight to see if an award seat is available!
The "in real time" availability on Seats.aero check is handy - so often with QFF site , the award seats have disappeared by the time you speak to an agent.
Maybe, with experience, I will find seats.aero a bit more user friendly and helpful . To be fair, I am looking for specific routings but I'm not sure its worth 15 AUD a month .

I am not sure if saved reward seat alerts are working fully/properly for Qantas on ExpertFlyer, multiple times I have found reward seats logged in/not logged into Qantas and no ExpertyFlyer alert has come through for the same saved reward seat alert.

 

[levelnine]

There are some positives but not if you are looking for flights in the USA / Canada say on American or Alaskan .

This is not the search tool for that purpose. It is only meant to cover major point-to-point flights, typically on international routes.

To be fair, the reason they do that is that their primary audience is US customers & for US customers domestic flights are now dynamically priced. They don't really care about saver award availability anymore for the most part (unless trying to take advantage of specific hacks like BA redemptions on AA domestic flights).

Maybe, with experience, I will find seats.aero a bit more user friendly and helpful . To be fair, I am looking for specific routings but I'm not sure its worth 15 AUD a month .

I would be wary of paying for any of these tools for a long period of time.

There is a huge amount of innovation occurring in this space. Over the past year or two, we've seen the launch of point.me, seats.aero, pointsyeah.com and more. I imagine we're going to get a lot more tools in the coming years.

Meanwhile, existing tools are becoming redundant all the time. You mention ExpertFlyer, for example. It cannot see Qantas-only reward seats (ie seats not made available to partners), so has become redundant for Qantas awards in my opinion.

 

[ozflier]

I am not sure if saved reward seat alerts are working fully/properly for Qantas on ExpertFlyer, multiple times I have found reward seats logged in/not logged into Qantas and no ExpertyFlyer alert has come through for the same saved reward seat alert.

Does happen-it is an issue with elite members getting advance access and EF only displays ordinary members access ?

 

[levelnine]

Does happen-it is an issue with elite members getting advance access and EF only displays ordinary members access ?

No, it is something different. Qantas release a lot of seats only to Qantas members — not available to any partner. The fare bucket they use for those Qantas-only seats is not visible to EF. It is not the elite-only seats — these are available to Bronze members.

 

[ozflier]

No, it is something different. Qantas release a lot of seats only to Qantas members — not available to any partner. The fare bucket they use for those Qantas-only seats is not visible to EF. It is not the elite-only seats — these are available to Bronze members.

Thank you for that info.

 

[goldenhorn]

I love this tool. I find it easy to use. It helped me use up my last 350K Lifemiles, which I thought I would lose after cancelled 2020 Covid flights.

Without too much difficulty I found and booked 2J seats for May 2024:

SQ/TK SIN-SG-IST
TK/LH IST-MUC-CDG
LO CDG-ORD

I’m paying $7.99pm, which might have been an introductory price, and plan to keep paying it. Money well spent.