Qatar Airways Privilege Club - Issues Changing my Seating Assignments - Qatar Airways

I have a round trip booked from the US to India (using mostly Qatar Airways). I had a travel agent book all segments, including my flight to NYC on American and my flight back home from NYC on Delta.

I'm taller than the average guy and hate to be crammed into a row. I love having open seats next to me. So I like to move my seats, sometimes multiple times, prior to the flight. Whenever my row fills up, I like to move to an area with open seats.

Anyway, on my Qatar Airways flights from NYC to Qatar to India, the Qatar Airways website doesn't allow me to switch my seats. I go through the steps, select my new seats, etc. But when I "submit" at the end, the seats revert back to the original assignments.

I have had no luck with their online customer support. They give me the simple steps to change seats, which I'm doing, but nothing more in depth.

I thought it might be my own computer, but I've tried it on 3 PC's and my iPad with the same issue.

Any ideas on the reason why they might be allowing some simple seat changes?

Welcome to the forums...

it could be a website issue: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qatar-airways-privilege-club/1274874-qr-fire-your-departement.html

Hope you're able to sort it out. But good luck finding an empty row on Delta these days, seems like most US airlines are filling up planes quite full...

Previously they used to block off all the ailse seats online.

If you call in they can assign the seat you want.

Only thing is that the call centers are not 24 hours and sometimes you have to hold for really long.

Yeah, their customer care did respond and tell me they will be glad to change the seat if I call. But that's a pain:-)

It really is either a weakness in their website programming (java or other) or maybe they have certain rules that prohibit seat changes that they don't want to disclose.

Either way, I find it odd that I cannot do something as simple as changing a seat on what is considered one of the top international airlines.

I did try the "old" site link in the forum you provided. I was able to navigate just fine, but they seem to have removed the ability to change seats through the old site.

Glad you got that sorted... but yea, a bit annoying.

That said, before, I think you could only pick your seat when you booked the ticket, and then again at online check-in, so I guess that may have something to do with it (?)

I think airlines dislike allowing passengers to pick their own seats, and prefer to ask if they want an aisle or window seat, and allocate it automatically. The tendency for passengers to manually select a seat when the others next to it are empty, and hope it stays that way, can make it difficult for check in staff to seat famlies and small groups together. Not everyone is able to book and selects seats on line. A couple of years ago, while checking in for a QR flight which was being handled by airport agents, I managed a glance at the agents screen, and vividly recall seeing the words 'Keep The Seat Map Tidy' prominently displayed.

Recently flew from Bangkok to CDG. It seems that when you first buy a ticket online you cannot change your seat, online, until 36 before your flight departs. Once the 36 hours comes into play you will then be able to change your seat online. I like this concept of being able to change your seat 36 hours before, because you will notice a lot more seats become available that were not available before. It also seems logical that you cannot book your seat until the 36 hour window comes into play, because otherwise you would have all sorts of problems on the Qatar system especially when two different people book exactly the same seat at exactly the same time before it finally registers on their computer.

I know what you mean about the staff not liking people booking their seats online, you can almost feel the power being drained from their finger tips. I have even had a few staff try and craftly change my seat number without even informing me, which is a bit out of order has well.

I managed a glance at the agents screen, and vividly recall seeing the words 'Keep The Seat Map Tidy' prominently displayed.

haha, nice... makes good sense though. But it still doesn't seem to prevent bedlam during boarding... the number of Qatar flights I've been on where people have complained and made a fuss about their assignment... and shown a rediculous sense of entitlement like they are above everyone else... :rolleyes:

They do allow to change seat if you call them.

After seeing some mixed reviews regarding the C seat I was supposed to be in, I called them to change it and they did it right away, sending the confirmation an hour later.

Can't wait to be on my first QR flight after Xmas, especially in C, will be quite a change from the Y that my company "pays" for me (when I say Y, I actually mean S, T, L or E on LH, not more)

I flew QR to India last year, booking online and was not able to select seats, so called them and they arrange it for us. I've recently booked flights to Malaysia and although I chose our seat in the process, they send me an email and had already changed out seat assignments. I went back on their site (the Canada - French version) but nowhere was it possible to access seat selection. I finally found out that it was possible to do so on their English version (global site). Whether those seats will really be attributed to us is not sure as it is written on their website that they could change. So, maybe if you try their global site it will work for you.

Good luck.

Thanks for all the help. It's greatly appreciated.

While it still seems odd to me that you simply can't login and select any seat you wish, I'm going to just wait until the day of the flight and see if I can get something with open seats next to me. I always struggled getting crammed into seats:-)

One more questions.....do the Qatar Airways flights have AC power at each economy seat?