JnsV

I have recently had a similar situation with a QF flight booked as AY5001. I called the US reservations number for QF (the one I could call for free) and explained the situation to the friendly agents. She gave me another record locator for Qantas and selected the seats I wanted (front 5 rows were blocked). She told me that I could use that record locator to view my seat assignment on QF website, but I can only change it by phoning them. Two weeks later, I decided to change my seat (from 28A to 30A, so as not to have a missing window if the A332 is swapped for an A333). I called in again, but at that time another agent found various excuses why I could not select seats: First, he told me that the don't do it for code-shares. After pointing out that I could already reserve a seat, he checked it with a supervisor and came back saying that he could assign a new seat, but only after receiving a 25 AUD payment. When I told him that beacuse of my OW Sapphire status I should be able to select seats for free, he told me that only QFF elites can select seats for free. I decided to (politely) hang up. I will most probably not press the issue further unless I see any signs of equipment swap (flight will be in November).

So, in summary, you should call QF and try to find a helpful agent who can actually do the seat assignment. They can do this for sure, but it might require more than one call to find someone who is actually willing to help you.

pswissoz

Issue was not with the QF flights but with the AY flights but this has been solved. Took me 52 minutes waiting for the AY sales rep to pick-up the phone in Sydney but eventually got the seats I wanted.

As I was initially routed via Hong Kong and have been re-booked via Singapore due to AY cancelling the HGK flight I was told that their booking system is having all sorts of glitches and problems at the moment as apparently thousands of bookings need to be re-routed.

Not sure if this is the truth but sounds okay to me who does not work in the airline industry but is simply a frequent flyer. In any case, really looking forward to my third trip this year to Europe flying QF/AY.

Wish I could catch an AY 333 with the new business class configuration but at least it seems I'll get to fly the newly refurbished QF 744 with real flat bed seats between BNE and SIN.

Cheers from Brisbane,

pswissoz

icebox425

What's the go with choosing seats for award fares?

I booked a flight through Qantas, a classic award fare (category X) to Helsinki.

I'm QFF Gold/OW Sapphire and I read on the FINNAIR site that OW Sapphire can choose Exit row, front of economy section seats etc free of charge. However all those seats are blocked with only the regular economy seats available to choose.

I rang FINNAIR in Sydney and they said because it was an award fare these seats are blocked. But, it doesn't say anywhere on their site that I can see that award fares are ineligible for the better economy seats. In fact, it specifically mentions Cat X fares as eligible for early seat selection?

Anyone know anything about this?

Kind regards.

intuition

The fare class X is an odd fish. See my table in this post.

X and a few other fare classes are in a group of tickets that give right to free "other seat" selection, but not exit row and bulkhead. (this rule do exist on their site, it is just not very easy to gather). This is what the staff is referring to.

However, this is the rule for the ticket alone. As an OW sapphire, the rules that comes with your status should trump the rules that comes with the ticket. Hence, you should be able to freely select any seat. I have not encountered this myself and I am not sure it will work, but I suggest you contact them again emphasizing your OW status.

intuition

I re-read the rules. It is actually not clear which rule will trump which rule. In my mind, a platinum / sapphire status would trump all, but if it is like you say (the blocked these tickets from certain seats) then maybe status won't affect the seat selection. Silly... I still suggest you try again, and report back what happens.

intuition

Me again...

If status doesn't trump the rules for Y, B, H, X tickets, this has the silly implication that a platinum card holder who buys a full fare econ ticket may not choose exit row. If he instead buys a campaign ticket, at 25% of the price, he is very welcome in exit row...

ffay005

The seat selection tool seems to get worse every day.

I have a very simple booking, a return flight HEL-CKG-HEL. No codeshares or curiosities. For some reason, my outbound seat 5J has mysteriously changed to 3C and when I go online to try to change it, the system gives me "yleisvirhe" and does nothing. Yleisvirhe = generic error.

I also have another booking which I knew in advance would be too complex for the AY IT systems – namely a codeshare! Flying DUS-HEL on AB flight number, the system actually manages to find the flight with the AB/Amadeus booking code but of course won't let me choose a seat. Well, that would of course be too much to ask, it's a codeshare after all

ffay005

A call to the E-helpdesk solved the CKG seating problem, although I still cannot change the seats online myself.

The codeshares are still too complicated a matter for AY. The girl who took my call had never heard that codeshare seat assignments don't work. She tried to assign me a seat for the DUS-HEL flight, but to no avail.

sakari1707

I believe most of the call center employees at Finnair have had very little training and I wouldn't wonder if some of them haven't ever even flown on a Finnair airplane or any plane for that matter......

Gone are the days when they really were experts and everything worked smoothly.....

intuition

This is the trend everywhere, not just in aviation. Every company uses the "dumb-down and save money" approach to customer service. Apparently the majority of customers (in all industries) are willing to trade away quality for lower price.

I learned in school the "rule" - Only 1 can hold the position as cheapest, so do not enter a market and compete on price only, unless you are certain you can be that #1
Strangely enough, everyone today seems to believe they can reach #1 cheapest regardless of their company's profile/products/cost structure/current customer stock.

NoWindowSeat

Well said and sooo true!

ffay005

Some of them are still real experts, but it's a hit and miss really.

We are lucky to have such a strange and small language in Finland. Otherwise, AY customer service would probably have been outsourced to Elbonia already.

Kallio

That's true. Unfortunately they seem have outsourced the IT development over there and thus the need of the customer service in the first place.

TTL

Made reservations for coming trips to LHR and assigned seats while reserving. The best Y seats seemed blocked and I took what I got. Later I tried to change the seats and despite all efforts an error page popped up.

Called to internet help number and waiting time was less than 1 minute. The explanation was, that when I have assigned seats, the system can not change assignments later! But a call to internet help desk would solve the seating problem also in the future.

That is a strange arrangement. BA MMB lets change the seats whenever and as many time as the OW sapphire/emerald cardholder or a flexible ticket holder desires, and that is the way it should be also by AY.

intuition

?! Meaning they changed something with your account so you can alter seats in the future? They fix the trouble account for account?!

Lufthansa lets you change your seat as many times as you like. However, often they play seat lotto when boarding commences and not even seats allocated by the gate staff or lounge is valid any longer