Getting a jump on airline award seats with Yapta

Here’s a fresh answer to a frequent-flier frustration: finding award seats. Yapta.com, which alerts ticket buyers when fares drop and helps them get travel credits, will now e-mail you if award seats become available on flights that you’re tracking. The service is free of charge.

So far only flights by Alaska Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and US Airways are covered. But Yapta spokesman Jeff Pecor said his company is working to add more carriers.

Pecor said he believes Yapta.com is the only website that offers this service for free. Another website, ExpertFlyer.com, includes searches for awards and upgrades, along with other services, in subscriptions that start at $4.99 per month. ExpertFlyer’s program covers more airlines than Yapta’s.

For details on the Yapta.com program, check out its award-seat page and FAQs.

—Jane Engle, assistant Los Angeles Times Travel editor

[Image: yapta.com]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 3:42 pm by Jane Engle and is filed under Airline travel, Business Travel, Deals, Frequent Flier, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.