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I see a lot of mentions of Seat Spy in the forums and in Rob’s posts but hardly anything on Reward Flight Finder. I use the paid version of RFF and have found it pretty good in general. Should I be using Seat Spy to search for 241 availability? The cost of the paid version is about the same but you can set up 1 alert for free on RFF.
Seat Spy better in my view and more accurate for some reason. Oh and the ‘Where can I go Map’ is great.
Also there was this controversy a couple of years ago:
https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/08/17/seatspy-avios-reward-flight-finder/
When you say “241” availability, just be aware that neither site will show you the extra availability to be had with the new-style voucher.
I subscribe to SeatSpy after long-running problems with RFF but I actually found the “Where can I go” facility on RFF much better – the one on SeatSpy limits you to a 2 week window, which is annoying and doesn’t seem to show all the available cabin classes.
Also there was this controversy a couple of years ago:
https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/08/17/seatspy-avios-reward-flight-finder/
Purely on principal I would never use RFF again.
I made the mistake of giving them my credit card number. Once you do that, they use every dishonest, deceptive “dark pattern” user interface trick to ensure that you do not get through the cancellation process, and they just keep billing you.
I made the mistake of giving them my credit card number. Once you do that, they use every dishonest, deceptive “dark pattern” user interface trick to ensure that you do not get through the cancellation process, and they just keep billing you.
What happened when you contacted your card provider?
Heard so much negative stuff about both in the last two years that I consider both a waste of time.
Heard so much negative stuff about both in the last two years that I consider both a waste of time.
You genuinely have no need for Seatspy? (Not going to talk about the morally bankrupt Reward Flight Finder).
What are you doing to get notified of BA availability?@Aston, nothing I judt search all relevant airlines daily until I find something suitable. Sooner or later I always have. Mind you I’ve lost a lot of £s chopping and changing.
I wouldn’t rely on notifications as they can come hours after the seats actually become available, but I find SeatSpy invaluable for building up a picture of how likely certain seats are to be available when I’m going to want them – also for spotting the odd F seat and seeing at a glance which dates are peak/off-peak.
Heard so much negative stuff about both in the last two years that I consider both a waste of time.
You genuinely have no need for Seatspy? (Not going to talk about the morally bankrupt Reward Flight Finder).
What are you doing to get notified of BA availability?Experience, guile and common sense will uncover a lot more availability than SeatSpy or RFF as things currently stand.
I am not the only one to report that for whatever reason SeatSpy throws up a lot of fake availability and misses much actual availability. It also can’t limit the search to particular flights on multiple flight routes; a big shortcoming. I subscribed from the beginning and will continue to do so because it costs peanuts and I hope it will one day get sorted out and add new features but they aren’t currently the people to get you into premium seats, notably F.
It’s still not going to be such a good product for Avios availability unless it can help with the extra BA Club availability, Iberia, Qatar or soon Finnair and for QR and IB they will never get there because they have so many quirks for getting availability. SeatSpy is also a strange business proposition in that the more popular it becomes, the less useful it will be.
SeatSpy has been brilliant for me, I’ve managed to upgrade 4 legs to F in the last few months (admittedly I don’t go East very much so your experience may differ if you do), but as noted above there are shortcomings:
– occasional fake availability
– missing BAPP extra availability
– missing other oneworld airlines
– inability to search long haul from the regionsBut it’s always my starting point and it’s been very useful.
RFF really did get caught out there.
There has always been controversy over how these sites get access to their data – look at the history of KVS Tool if you dig into old FlyerTalk discussions – and I wonder how Seatspy gains access to BA reward availability. Nothing underhand, I’m sure, but likely intercepting data streams at some point. Expertflyer got stung on this last year.
I think if I was super-keen on finding a particular set of flights I’d battle to set up some sort of automated search through selenium on my own PC, but that would be a PITA and is not something most people would want to / can do.
Indeed.
Seatspy isn’t perfect but pinged me with an alert for Avios seats to Marseille during the rugby World Cup which allowed me to ditch a 7am flight for a 9:15am one.
I also got pinged for a sold out Saturday to Faro at half term which allowed me to cancel two seats booked with a gold priority reward for 51,000 + £1 and replace them for 16,500 Avios + £35.
The former was more convenient, the latter saved me £300 at my vague avios valuation.
In terms of the Amex vouchers, Seatspy is zero use but I did have success (or luck) getting 4xJ to Singapore using the Amex voucher by having a price alert set up on Google flights. When the price dropped I checked availability and obviously a cascade of I class fares had been enough to trigger enhanced reward availability for my dates. I’m guessing that is the experience, guile, and common sense @JDB is on about?
I did have success (or luck) getting 4xJ to Singapore using the Amex voucher by having a price alert set up on Google flights. When the price dropped I checked availability and obviously a cascade of I class fares had been enough to trigger enhanced reward availability for my dates
That’s really interesting and quite logical now I think about it.
Thanks Frogster, I think I’ll go setup some google flights alerts of my own!When the price dropped I checked availability and obviously a cascade of I class fares had been enough to trigger enhanced reward availability for my dates. I’m guessing that is the experience, guile, and common sense @JDB is on about?
Smart!
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