Originally Posted by
CrazyJ82
I can imagine how stressful this would have been. But it's fair to ask, did you ever actually call and explain this situation to a human being over the phone, or for that matter specifically ask at check-in or at the gate? From your description, it sounds like you might have been doing all of this exclusively through the website. Others will probably know better than I do, but it's possible that a human res agent might have been able to open those seats for you. We certainly hear a lot here about people reserving bassinet seats in F and being warned they might be moved if a baby shows up. Since your row numbers make it sound like you were on a 77A/77D, the bassinet seats are not ELR for sale so that wasn't in play.
Not trying to blame the victim. Just making the point, learned from experience, that even in the internet age it's not always best to assume we can do anything and everything over the web. For better or worse, sometimes there's no substitute for speaking to a real person at the airline.
I bought the ticket online, but upon seeing the seats being not available online, I did not do any seating arrangements, and called the Marco Polo member services instead. So no, it wasn't done exclusively through the website. They told me it was taken, and I couldn't take those seats, even with a baby. I assumed it was taken by other people with babies.
Does this mean that the service level varies from person to person within the CX organization? Shouldn't Marco Polo member services be able to bump someone without a baby off the baby bassinet seats, or at least inform me to call the local reservations or refer to the check in staff (which means I would need to check in early and defeats the purpose of OLCI)?