I play with Yapta some, and it seem like a useful tool. Haven't used it for a refund on a price decrease - do those exist anymore? so I don't know how that works.

But, you can now track flight price info AND award flight info. From the NY Times:

<i>Starting on Tuesday, Yapta will do just that. Known for alerting travelers to airfare price drops even after the ticket has been purchased, the site is testing a new service that allows travelers to receive an e-mail alert when an award seat becomes available. Travelers simply do a normal online search for airfare on http://www.yapta.com and click “include award tickets” to begin tracking the flight. Yapta will automatically send alerts via e-mail if either the price drops or an award seat opens up.</i>

This could be really helpful if it works as advertised.

BTW, I know Expertflyer tracks that as well, but Yapta is free.

tt

<i>I know Expertflyer tracks that as well</i>

But I don't think Expertflyer works in the same way. Expertflyer gives you real-time availability, but it doesn't check the availability automatically and email you when it shows up. I would use this in conjunction with Expertflyer, myself.

This has the potential to be a very, very nice tool, even for those that use Expertflyer.

That's incorrect. You can set a flight alert in ExpertFlyer for either revenue or award seat availability.

Gosh, you are right. I have been under-utilizing Expertflyer. I have created several flight alerts already. Thanks for the clarification.

I can't seem to find how you can do a reward ticket tracking thing on yapta - how do I do this?
Thanks,
Deb

go to &quot;Plan a Trip&quot;, plan your trip, and when the results come up there is a check box with &quot;Include award flights&quot;. Now, there is a tab, labeled &quot;Airline accounts&quot; where I put in where I have FF accounts and my number, and how many miles I have with each. So, I guess this is where Yapta gets the info to pull up which airlines to use the include awards button with.

This is the first time I came across Yapta, never heard about them before. Tried it just now for a couple of upcoming itineraries I'm working on and got the worst, meaning the most expensive results in comparison with all the others (Kayak, Booking Buddy, Mobilissimo), the flights that I'm about to book weren't even mentioned.
Am I missing something, what's so good about this engine? Btw, you can get the fare change from Kayak as well.

I had some puzzling results on Yapta, also. I was looking at a flight I had been planning on Continental.

The first problem was that Yapta apparently doesn't handle open jay (also known as multiple destination) trips, which I use a lot.

I switched to a round trip format, selecting Continental as a favorite airline. It found about 5 flights which were a bit higher than those at Continental.com, but I think that might be that Yapta lists flights including taxes (I am guessing at this as I didn't get far enough to see the components of the listed fare) while Continental.com initially lists the flights without taxes, and adds them later in the process. My access was limited as I had not registered. After I registered I researched the same flight, Continental preferred, with similar flight dates, and it listed 50 American Airlines flights, which seemed to be higher than the Continental fares, and no flights on Continental. I researched with revised dates and it then found some Continental flights.

My favorite use of miles is to upgrade a tourist ticket, since then I earn miles on the flight. Yapta seemed to only offer the option of buying a ticket with miles, which I don't like as, as a leisure flier, I need to earn miles to keep my frequent flier status. That may no longer be important as, at least on Continental, they don't seem to offer many upgradeable tickets anymore, while discounted front cabin tickets, at a cost less than a Y or H fare, upgraded with miles.

Gosh, you are right. I have been under-utilizing Expertflyer. I have created several flight alerts already. Thanks for the clarification

EF may work for a lot of people for many routes.
It did not work for me at all - I had trial offer but did not keep it.
I was trying to find AA award seats on OW partners and EF did not show these.
So EF is good, but not for everyone and everything

Thanks for the info.

Yapta is only tracking award availability for 5 airlines for now - AS, CO, DL, UA and US.

Patty,
I wonder why not AA?