Guess that's the price of getting 100% mileage booking the AA codeshare (and paying a few hundred $s more at that) rather than booking the QF flights themselves. Thinking of doing PER late next month so guess I should brace myself for the worst. (Then again, if QF's own coach fliers on discount fares can't select their seats either, it becomes a matter of getting to the airport early -- or being able to select at the time of OLCI. Fortunately I'd be inbound from the other side of both continents on the transPac segments so have a quarter-day leg up on SYD and MEL boarding pax.)