airberlin topbonus - AB a big F*UP

Booked a flight through TA.

Inserted BAEC number online along with a Paid seat assignment.

That was couple weeks ago.

Now less than 24 hours before departure:

Can`t check-in online

Seat assignment is gone. Instead I am 2 rows further in the back.

Called 3 times today and was told:
1st call:
Oh, you have entered a BAEC number. That will make it impossible to check-in. Let me remove it and in about 45 minutes you can check-in.

FAIL

2nd call:
Oh so you still can`t check-in. Lets see might take another hour or so. Then try it again.
And yes, you are right seat is gone. Don`t worry you can select it when you do the online check-in.

FAIL

3rd call:
Try again in an hour then it should work.
Yes, your seat is gone you may be able to select a seat further up. Maybe not.

FAIL

Will cal a fourth time now and see what happens then.

Fourth call:
Nothing we can do.
You have to deal with it at the airport.

Sounds frustrating, but I'm not sure having to check in at the airport is a big F up.

Sounds frustrating, but I'm not sure having to check in at the airport is a big F up.

Not getting the seat I paid for. Is.

Not being able to check-in with a BAEC member no. on file. Is.

Not getting real answers the 1st and 2nd time. Is.

Having to check-in at the airport. Not.
(Lucky I have not one of their new cheapo fares, then it would be!)

Sounds frustrating, but I'm not sure having to check in at the airport is a big F up.

The OP has my full understanding and I am going to share his frustration with Air Berlin. Same to me, I was never able to do the online check in for some reason and Air Berlin is not helpful at all. No solution from their side!



(Lucky I have not one of their new cheapo fares, then it would be!)

PS: What is the cheapo fare? What do you mean by that?

The OP has my full understanding and I am going to share his frustration with Air Berlin. Same to me, I was never able to do the online check in for some reason and Air Berlin is not helpful at all. No solution from their side!

Their customer services decreased in quality and quantity during the last one or two years. At least that is my experience.


PS: What is the cheapo fare? What do you mean by that?

They introduced a new fare which is comparable to no-frill-offers of various airlines. It is only the flight. No checked luggage, limited service for check-in, forced check of cabin luggage, and much more restrictions.

Wel, it finally worked.

I tried it several times to no avail during the day as posted.

In the evening I tried one of the 2 ticket numbers. (2 because a seat reservation generates another ticket number).

Am checked-in and have a seat a bit further up than originally.

It seems to be a problem with their OW integration and not so much about customer service, right:
...
Called 3 times today and was told:
1st call:
Oh, you have entered a BAEC number. That will make it impossible to check-in. Let me remove it and in about 45 minutes you can check-in.

...

I agree that it is highly frustrating. However, they just recently joined OW, and some such problems may arise. In comparison, there are airlines that joined star alliance over 2 years ago and there still is occasional trouble entering FF#.

Booked a flight through TA.

Inserted BAEC number online along with a Paid seat assignment.

That was couple weeks ago.

Now less than 24 hours before departure:

Can`t check-in online

Seat assignment is gone. Instead I am 2 rows further in the back.

Called 3 times today and was told:
1st call:
Oh, you have entered a BAEC number. That will make it impossible to check-in. Let me remove it and in about 45 minutes you can check-in.

FAIL

2nd call:
Oh so you still can`t check-in. Lets see might take another hour or so. Then try it again.
And yes, you are right seat is gone. Don`t worry you can select it when you do the online check-in.

FAIL

3rd call:
Try again in an hour then it should work.
Yes, your seat is gone you may be able to select a seat further up. Maybe not.

FAIL

Will cal a fourth time now and see what happens then.


Come on, in omnibus caritas......

And all airlines and hotels also says subject to change. So they changed your seat two rows? Big freaking deal. So you couldn't check in online? Chill out dude.

And in the end you couldn't check in because you were using the wrong ticket nukmber .. thats a real big f*ck up, let me tell you.

And all airlines and hotels also says subject to change. So they changed your seat two rows? Big freaking deal.

... well, perhaps the OP booked and paid for an XL-Seat and is now stuck somewhere else (AB has a very narrow pitch, apart from XL-Seats). So I can understand the OP's frustration.

Apart from that: There is really a bug in AB's OLCI system, if you have two or more legs in your itinerary and the first one is open while the latter ones are between 48 and 30 hours out. Then the OLCI system - from my experience - always denies check-in, also for the first leg, and - even more frustrating - eliminates all seat reserveration of the entire itinerary ... I stopped using OLCI, except for very simple itineraries with just one one way flight or a return flight further than 48 hours out.

...
Apart from that: There is really a bug in AB's OLCI system, if you have two or more legs in your itinerary and the first one is open while the latter ones are between 48 and 30 hours out. Then the OLCI system - from my experience - always denies check-in, also for the first leg, and - even more frustrating - eliminates all seat reserveration of the entire itinerary ... I stopped using OLCI, except for very simple itineraries with just one one way flight or a return flight further than 48 hours out.

Thanks for posting, this is really important information to know. ^

Thanks for posting, this is really important information to know. ^

Also the on-line system doesn't automatically recognise OW status for free seat selection. The usual work around of using Finnair doesn't work either.
So you have to call up.

The first time I called they put me in the wrong seats, apparently there was a misunderstanding between us of 'B' and 'D'. (I wanted B&C, I got given D&C).
I thought I would just wait until T-30 to see if I could change it then (as I thought it unlikely anyone would take the 'B' seat I wanted. When I went to OLCI it wouldn't let me select B, however the whole row was full (the XL row), which I suspected was not actually the case, merely that the system was blanking it out.
So I called up and asked them to move the seats together, they moved me to A&B (and I can see this on finnair.com), however when I log back in to OLCI it thinks I am still in C&D!
I'm just going to hope I can sort it at the airport. Buggy system indeed!

How one can conclude from a single frustrating experience with an airline that the airline "is a f* up" - this reasoning is beyond me. As is the needlessly offensive wording.

How one can conclude from a single frustrating experience with an airline that the airline "is a f* up" - this reasoning is beyond me. As is the needlessly offensive wording.

I do agree.

With regards to the topic, my experience has been much more positive:

- The AB bookings that I have linked to my BA# are shown when logging into the EC homepage
- Their system automatically preassigns me a seat (aisle, typically around row 6) which also shows on the BA page
- I can check in through AB without any issues (have not been on a connecting flight yet)
- For longer flights the hotline was happy to change my seat reservations to the exit row free of charge. Given that they are making passengers pay for these seats, in one out of two flights I had the entire exit row for myself

Only annoying thing so far is that BA Gold does not prompt the gates to their priority waiting area to open.