Justwondering1

Being someone who worked on the Shares system, there are a few agents out there that know how to request a generic seat on Air Canada, or they can go in, select a segment out of the pnr, view the Air Canada seats still available to reserve, then force select...the reserved seat should then be available to see in the osi fields of the pnr...

astroflyer

AC has made this all a lot tougher lately because they're in the process of trying to monetize their seating a lot more. Some aircraft have added a version of E+, but their IT infrastructure means that they can't even sell you this seat, no matter how much you're willing to pay, if you booked it other than directly through them.

The lounge staff won't even help with seat assignments any more. That was my way of getting around calling in the past. that and some friendly AC elite who gave me the elite phone number

Kacee

This is debatable.

Some of the rudest FAs I've ever encountered have been on AC.

You will not find an unhappier forum on FT than the AP forum.

Agreed though that the MLLs are on the whole nicer than the UC's.

Dieuwer

Just called to change seat assignments on my award ticket. About 20 minutes on hold, but the change was performed quickly by the CSR.

1k-all-the-way

I called today to do the same.....my hold was 40 minutes...

TrainingMiles

Similar to OP, I have two parent+young-child economy award ticket pairs booked on Air Canada using UA miles.

I reached an AC Agent who told me that only middle seats were available. I pointed out that the children are young enough they can't sit alone and asked if there were any other paths besides the "it can be resolved at the gate, or on board" option that was offered.

Agent mentioned they have preferred seats they may or may not be able to sell me. She said she could try my CC and it might possibly go through. Before playing this game of roulette, I thought I'd consult FT for your guidance:

1. Are preferred seats on AC like Economy Plus on UA?
2. As 1K parents, do we have any ability to book these seats with no fee?
3. Assuming I need to pay (~$45 each), does anybody have experience on whether seats can actually be purchased and confirmation that seat selection will stick?

Thanks in advance for your help.

-TrainingMiles

mduell

1. Yes
2. No

GoAmtrak

As one who doesn't use Twitter I use this service to have AC call me instead of languishing on hold.

tomcat007

Wow. This is painful. United wont let you select AC seats online and the AC website says contact the carrier you booked the ticket on. Have to call this in.

emcampbe

This is an AC issue because forget UA, it's a PITA to get seats directly with AC. With other carriers, you can at least go to their website with the PNR and get them through their. With AC this is near impossible. They do have their alternate seat selection tool, since the native manage my reservation function won't allow you to do this if the reservation was booked anywhere other then AC.com. But I don't even remember how to get to it anymore, and didnt see it on a reservation I was looking at yesterday, though I know I've seen it in the past. And while hold times have been much better in recent months, it still takes a while (~20-25 minutes on a regular day vs. 45-60 in the past).

On the other hand, booked an award yesterday using UA miles on AC metal, and at least seats were automatically assigned.

tomcat007

Is this true for all award bookings or only because you are platinum?

RandomBaritone

AC couldn't care less if someone is Platinum on another airline, even a *A airline.

On the plus side, if you can reach an agent on the phone, they can assign seats, even on an award booking.

And to my pleasant surprise, the agent with whom I spoke today was even able to sell me a preferred seat for my transatlantic award flight in a few months. Apparently they've updated their systems enough to be able to accept payment even when they're not the ticketing carrier. Very nice change.

emcampbe

I'm not sure. They got assigned row 11 on a CRJ, so not good seats (miles were out of my account but the ticket for my dad). So I'm not sure they were the best regular seats.

My recollection from my last award booking on AC metal was that I also got assigned a seat, but not even good for a regular seat, so called in to get moved further toward the front anyway, which was available.

On another note, interesting to see that on the UA confirmation, it shows bags are free per what I would get as a plat, but the AC version shows the bag fees as chargeable (dad is an Aeroplan general member). I'm not sure if there are going to be checked bags, but interesting to see what will happen with that.

paule123

I just booked a UA codeshare on AC metal, CLE-YYZ. I'm Silver and paid with the PP card. The initial booking email from UA said 1st bag free. However the next UA "confirmed and ticketed" email said no 1st bag free. Logged in to AC site with AC booking # and it says no 1st bag free. I thought *A Silver got 1 bag free, but the *A web site doesn't seem to indicate that.

Edit: If I go to AC's baggage calculator, it tells me *A Silver does get 1 bag free. Weird.

BTW my UA "V" fare mapped to a "Flex" fare on AC, so I suppose that's why the system automatically assigned me a seat.

DavidWeb

Hi all,

I've read numerous thread on the importance of verifying ticket on award flights. I have two segments on AC using UA miles. I got the confirmation number for AC and I got the ticket number from UA. When I entered my AC confirmation number on AC, I see my flight listed. However, the 'Select Seats' option was greyed out. When I clicked on it, I got the following message.


1. If your flight is operated by another airline, you will need to contact that airline to complete your seat selection.
2. If yours is an Air Canada Vacations booking, please contact Air Canada Vacations directly.
3. If your booking is currently on hold, you'll need to complete your booking before selecting your seats.
4. If you have been upgraded or are waitlisted for an upgrade, it is not possible for you to select your seat.

Only option 3 seems to apply to me. I have no status to be waitlisted for an upgrade. Should I be concern? What should I do?