Frequent-Flier Award Seat Alert Service

We have highlighted YAPTA before on Little Nomads with its great tracking alert service for sourcing air fares, now travellers can be alerted about Frequent-Flier Miles seats when they become available. Perfect for the family that likes to use points to subsidise their family vacations with points.

Yapta.com today announced the launch of its frequent-flier award seat alert service, enabling travelers to be notified when they can use their frequent-flier miles to book an award seat that becomes available on a specific flight. The award seat alerts are provided in tandem with Yapta’s airfare price change alerts that, to date, have notified hundreds of thousands of travelers to more than $90 million in airfare savings. Travelers receiving Yapta’s award seat alerts are notified when award seats are available for the minimum mileage possible, regardless of seat class or program mileage level.

“One of the biggest frustrations for frequent travelers is not knowing when they can actually redeem their miles to book an award seat,” said Tom Romary, president & CEO of Yapta. “Yapta now alerts travelers via email when an award seat is available, so they don’t miss out on an opportunity to use their hard-earned miles. As a personal travel assistant, Yapta enables travelers to choose the exact flights they want to take and – in addition to checking prices – tracks daily the availability of award seat inventory for them.”

Yapta.com is the only travel shopping Website that tracks both airfare and award seat availability on specific flights at no charge to the traveler. Once a traveler performs a flight search for airfare on Yapta.com, they will find within the search results the option to “track” the airfare and award seat availability on specific flights. When the traveler indicates that they want to “include award ticket” alerts along with pricing alerts, Yapta will begin monitoring that flight’s award seat availability in addition to the price. If either an award seat becomes available or the price drops, Yapta will alert the traveler via email.

Yapta further assists travelers by linking them directly to the awards section of the airline Website to redeem their frequent flier miles. Similarly, Yapta also links travelers directly to the airline ticket purchase page to book their flight online. Since the launch of Yapta in May 2007, Yapta has sent more than $75 million in potential bookings to various airline sites at no cost to the carrier.

Yapta’s award seat alert service also benefits airlines by helping their travelers more easily use miles, which, in turn, allows the airline to recognize deferred revenues more quickly and reduce liability on their balance sheet.

“Airlines want their frequent fliers to use miles because it strengthens their loyalty program,” Romary said. “Our award seat alerts stimulate the usage of frequent flier programs and therefore will have a positive impact on the airline’s balance sheet and income statement.”

“Yapta’s innovative technology and alert service – including their new award seat alerts – delivers a level of pricing transparency that makes it easy for travel shoppers,” said Mark Guerette, director of e-commerce for Alaska Airlines. “At Alaska Airlines, we understand that frequent fliers appreciate superior communications and continued innovation when it come to our shopping tools and rewards program – so we can see the value in Yapta’s achievement.”