I was wondering if anyone has a workaround for this? I just booked another QR flight to the US. I will be transiting in ORD and connecting to a domestic leg on AA. On another recent QR booking, I was able to select my AA seat directly on the QR website during booking. This time, it gave me the standard message that the flight is marketed & operated by AA, so I could not. No surprise there.

What I was surprised by (not having flown QR in a while due to the blockade and then Covid), was that the booking confirmation and receipt no longer show an AA ticket number or booking reference. So I have no way to get on the AA website and choose my seat or double check that they have my Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check number. I called QR and they told me that they are not able to do it in their system, that they don't have an AA ticket number (because it's all on one QR ticket), and that when asked, the supervisor said "that sucks."

I was told that when I check in for my first QR flight they'll assign a seat for the AA leg, but I know how that goes - they won't. They'll give me a blank boarding pass and tell me to get a seat when I get to Chicago. I will have a pretty long layover at ORD, so that's not an issue. But yes I am a bit picky about seats. And, the QR rep was able to look and tell me that there are only 9 seats (in a 2-1 configuration in F) so I get a bit paranoid about losing my seat especially if we are delayed. I just like the security of having an actual assigned seat.

Any suggestions from the smarter/more experienced people?