Seats Available

[Epiphone]

Hello,

I have been looking at staff travel to book some tickets for myself and family (Cat C). I see there are no seats available for the dates I want to travel, actually I see there are no tickets available ever.... or so it seems, even though 4 months from now the seats on board are only 1 third sold. They are predicting the aircraft to be oversold.
From peoples experiences here, do you find that more tickets become available closer to the date of travel.
Should I book accommodation and hope that more seats become available at a later date?
I have only been here a short time so still trying to understand how staff travel here really works.
Thanks for any info.

E.

[Gulfstreamaviator]

More info will be requested by those who might be in the know....... glf

[skyvan]

Don't trust the predictions, they are based on historical data and we are in a dynamic environment, therefore predictions tend to be a tad "unreal".

Look at the capacity vs booked numbers, and use a bit of common sense. If you are a week from date of travel, and there is space available, there is a good chance you will travel. If the flight is overnbooked already, you aren't going on that trip.

Good luck.

[alexm320]

Answering your question... yes, the figures do change when the date is getting closer. Just monitor carefully because one day you may have some seats available, next day they are gone... and also the other way around, sometimes there are some flights wide open, some days later, all the available seats are gone.

[OrryFace]

For firm seat availability the only source is always your own airline. Most of them will 'nest' employee firm travel at the very bottom of the fare class availability, below the lowest published fare and below the 'bucket' for frequent flyer redemptions. In other words they only become available if the clever chaps in Revenue Management predict that the flight will leave with empty seats.
Continual monitoring can change the situation at any time. But in general I agree with the comment that the closer you get to departure the more accurate the availability will be.

Now, for travelling standby on id90 or ZED tickets, again your own airline is the font of all knowledge. But what if you want to 'interline' i.e. travel on another carrier? In that case, there are a number of sites which can help you get an idea of the situation. Hop over, for example, to idDeals.com where they forecast in real-time the number of seats left. You can even check on your mobile. Small fee required for this one, but probably worth it. Another option is ASU Tripchecker, a bit more basic but still works.

For more chat on this sort of stuff idtraveltalk.com caters for interline junkies.

But whatever happens, remember the mantra: " 'Standby' means you are off until you are on, and 'firm' means you are on until you are off "

[Epiphone]

Thanks for the replies.

Much appreciated


E.

[oz in dxb]

Try to book your CAT C tickets at a date that allows you to, then when you get your tickets, cancel all listings and create a listing for the time you want to go.

You will be waitlisted, however with your higher onload category you will jump ahead of subload pax.

Oz

[Praise Jebus]

OZ you don't have to go through that hassle, I assume the original poster is talking about EK. If no Cat C are available on the flight/date of travel just select "wait list" as the ticket option for that date, do this via TRIPs when requesting the ticket. Then as the date approaches if seats are showing then email staff travel if in Dubai and ask to be booked firm. That does. not always work here but worth the effort. At out-stations I have found if you call the EK booking number they are more likely to book you firm. But if not then as OZ said, on the day you are ahead of the Cat A's at least.

[three eighty]

He does not need to contact staff travel to change the wait listed ticket to firm. If sufficient seats free up the ticket will be changed to firm. I don't know if this is automatically done by the system or manually but you will know its happened when you find a firm ticket waiting in your inbox.