Dicksbits

I do think TS has been working in my favour over the last few trips I've taken (Gold member). I was on a totally full ALC-LGW in Nov in CE and had 2F and the row to myself. Does it work for IB flights? I've been on two busy services in the last few months and the seats in J next to me have been left empty. Could be a coincidence.

On 4 Feb I am flying to LPA (BA service) and had reserved the exit row 11 for me and my friend (a Blue member, but on my booking). As the curtain moved back on both outbound and inbound sectors we were moved seats. 11D/E is still showing, but 27D/E has also been allocated on outbound and 15B/C on rtn. No other seats ahead of 27 are showing as reserved. Did TS send us to the back of the outbound service on an A320 as the system thought I'd most likely have a spare seat next to me?

corporate-wage-slave

I don't have any knowledge here other than on one A321 flight recently the curtain moved back to beyond the first exit row, and I was moved a long way back to the second exit row, which then got filled up, presumably from both rows of ET status passengers being merged on to one. Now I don't know if this was manually assisted - I doubt it - but putting both issues together I think there is some logic to retain the next best option, and puts relatively little weight on how far back in the aircraft that this implies.

xenole

Was on a LHR-MAN flight the other day with 10 seats free (according to what I heard from the crew) and the first four rows seemed to have the middle seat vacant.
Few middles free on the previous MAN-LHR flight as well.
No idea if anything to do with this or what.

Another domestic (NCL-LHR) has me in 1A and 1B/1C already taken so that will spite someone (or I could move back to row18? where the A and C seats have been taken in what looks like an attempt at seat blocking).

MPH1980

Erm. 4th February. It's too far out for TS to be considering anything isn't it?

corporate-wage-slave

Very much true. Theoretical Seating only comes in as part of the process to coming under airport and FLY control, 3 days out. It's quite possible that the current seating module is doing some similar, however.

Dicksbits

That's just it really. If none of the seats between say rows 14-30 are showing as reserved, then why move a Gold member back to 27 out of 28? Just curious really… J3 C1 R2 Y9 B8 H5 K5 M0 S2 G0

….would suggest down the back is not totally busy and there may be some spare seats.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

My experiences ( HBO fare)

Wed 1210 EDI-LGW 1C with 1B free ( a fair number of seats empty on the a/c)

Thurs 1915 LGW-EDI 1A ( but no empty seat)- aircraft looked very full.

Regards

TBS

MPH1980

OK ... I'm not sure I understand this.

I'm in 13K on this flight tonight. I'm GGL. The seating on the flight has been pretty full for a while (when I booked there were 5 empty seats) and 13J - up to check in last night and beyond - was taken by someone else. Just checked - it's now empty.

Even if I accept the flight is status heavy - why are 13J and 12J the ones unblocked here? If we accept that 12A, one of 10D and F and 11E are all Gold ... surely the GGL thing should outrank at this point?

This isn't really a DYKWIA moment - it's just a 'trying to understand' as I thought I had this straight in my head that status was the big deciding factor here and while I could accept 5-6 golds being in the cabin - another 3-4 GGLS being there?

Or are GGL/Gold equivalent in the eyes of TS and I'm in a "random luck" situation.

(and I have checked - I am still in 13K - I haven't been op-upped yet)

Results from ExpertFlyer.com

corporate-wage-slave

CW looks quite jammed too, but there are some spare seats, WTP actually looks oversold to me, at a guess. GGL and Gold are believed to be the same level in TS, they can certainly calibrate it to make a difference, and there was at least one report (upthread) which suggests they did, but I am not sure we've got enough evidence yet. Now what the fundamental cause of this is that the cabin is very nearly full, plus they are making some assumptions that some people aren't going to turn up. So the number of blocked seats I see in that cabin are 3 (12B, 11D, 12J) plus just one open seat, 10E. There are probably quite a few Goldies on that route on a Friday. If there was more availability in the cabin, I can easily believe 13J would be blocked, but TS isn't going to save you from either a full cabin or force couples to split up to create the blocked seat, so you are a bit of victim of circumstances, I would guess, and at the moment 13J and 13K are both taken.

I think an upgrade may happen at the gate, I'd give you a 40% chance I think, depending on whether there are any last minute np-shows, connection irrops etc.

our_kid

Have to say I was surprised last week outbound to DFW to have 64J unoccupied when I was in 64K - rest of UD full and not sure of downstairs but it looked busy.

One of the best CW segments I've had for a long time on the refurb 747-400

MPH1980

Thanks for the analysis. 13J did get taken and we're now left with just 10E awaiting allocation. It doesn't look (to me) like economy is oversold - but we'll find out.

And on the chances of an op-up - I've come to the conclusion that DUT hates me personally, particularly on returns back from the US.

Dicksbits

Fascinating stuff all round - I'll be interested to see what happens to our two seats 3 days before the 4th Feb. Will we remain in row 27, will the curtain move back to row 9 or 10 and allow us back into row 11, will we be moved forward to row 14-16 which are largely free. Time will tell.

hugolover

GGL is not a tier as I understand it? It's just a further set of privileges within the Gold tier.

Given I have had no issues to place myself next to a GGL across multiple cabins I don't see any evidence to suggest it's considered different to Gold. The only other tier is Premier which the CI software clearly manage differently.

LH have chose a more vigorous approach than BA to protect their top tier and HON is very separate. The seat is "hard" blocked for other tiers to choose the adjacent. As always a full flight can be overridden even for a HON. Whereas BA align OWE with Gold, Star Gold is not aligned with *G and the PCV is higher for SEN.

MPH1980

It would certainly appear this is how BA are approaching it. Seems a bit of a weird approach given they could have used CIV and had the same effect but given the graduation.

hugolover

There have been rumours on the M&M board of so-called SEN+ and SEN- and Cessna HONs from "real ones" but having seen LHs system up close I haven't really seen anything like CIV used this way but would be part of the PCV that CWS kindly explained above somewhere. I am not even sure it can be done. You can add a "VIP" designator which seems to make it even more blocked but there probably isn't much point. For an important pax CI can just block the seat properly and it's done and dusted.

I find it all fascinating. By the way even LO are using the system; I tried to seat a Gold next to me but the system wouldn't let me. Took out my FFP and seat unblocked, put it back to test and seat blocked. The contact centre staff had no clue why this was happening until I explained .

We need to pay homage to bmi for this who rolled it out years ago.