AF said that DL gave us 'fake reservatiohs'

We just got back from a CDG-LAX flight in Premium Voyageur on AF that I booked on the phone w/DL in January this year. We checked in at CDG about an hour and a half before the fight left. We were later than we wanted to be because the Paris traffic on the first day of school vacations made the bas between Orly & CDG late. At the counter, I asked for our original seats, 20 A & B, as assigned to us by DL (I had a printout with me). On our LAX-CDG flight, we were put into the 2 middle seats which killed us. The agent said that not only would we not get those seats, we wouldn't get any seats since they were overbooked! She said that we never had those seats anyway since that was a 'fake reservation.' She said that DL's computers don't talk to AF's, and that DL knows that. She didn't even have my Silver Medallion number. We eventually got on the flight. My husband got a seat in the bulkhead row, and a teenager next to him traded with me. So I ended up in a bulkhead row with an aisle seat which was a great improvement over my outbound seat.

Has anyone had a similar experience with being told they have a 'fake reservation?'

Welcome to FT!

It's well-known around here that DL's systems and AF's systems are horrible at seat assignments. Best bet is always to call DL and ask for the AF PNR or else put in the DL ticket number (minus the last digit or two) on airfrance.us to ensure that everything looks right in the record. I believe KL's website (which does talk to the AF systems properly) will take DL PNRs, which is another option for checking your record.

Sorry you had a rough experience, but glad that you made it on the planned flight in the end!

Yes I agree. If you are flying with AF, you should contact AF well before the flight to make sure your reservation is correct and the seats are correct. Don't rely on DL or any other codeshare airline. It's true for any codeshare with any set of airlines. It's always best to double check.

Thanks for the welcome to FT and for the help. We are recently retired and are hoping to become well versed in all things related to travel. As I browse through the forums, I realize what newbies we really are!

Was it really 'fake reservations' or fake seat assigments of which you were accused? Absence of a reservation is a real problem, especially with summer load factors on trans-Atlantic flights. Your Delta reservation confirmation is all that is needed - legally. Don't let any carrier, anywhere, give you guff about that.

As for fake seat assignments, yes, as other posters have noted, the computers don't swap and reconcile info on seat assignments. Always make them with the operating carrier.

The title is misleading!

Seat Assignments are always provisional - I know of no airline that guarantees that the seat you have chosen will definitely be the seat that you end up sitting in.

True, but it's pretty clear DL never even got the request through to AF. I've recently called KE and MH for seat assignments for an upcoming award booking through DL, and the KE agent for sure (and I think the MH agent) were both very clear about them not guaranteeing the seat assignment, especially if there's an equipment change. (I'm hoping that KE getting its A380s going might mean LHR finally gets flat beds in J every once in a while, and I'll gladly give up the UD on 747 for a full flat bed instead of angled.)

You are right that the seat assignments ended up being the issue, but the agent did say 'fake reservations' to us. That was probably a second language issue, but it certainly scared us to death.

Does sound like a language issue, as the English words that were probably meant were "fake seat requests". I'd have had a momentary freak-out there, too. Knowing DL's IT, I definitely called KE and MH to ensure that things looked right for my upcoming award trip booked on their flights through DL. I'll probably call once a month to check, since there's not really a good way to do it online, even with PNRs. (Yes, there are carriers with worse websites than DL, and so far AZ, KE, and MH are all up there in my experience.)