Originally Posted by
ajnz
As an aside, were you able to get seating allocated for the flights on a segment-by-segment basis or would they only allocate on the through flight basis?
I've not been able to convince the phone res people to do it on a per segment basis. Right now we have an aisle/middle pair, and the window seat is free. I just called to ask if it was possible to get the aisle/window and block the middle, and the agent refused to do so saying that NZ does not do that (and never has?!) and that even the checkin agents at the airport can't do it; and that only the duty manager at the airport can, after the flight has gone to airport control.
This surprises me as I've had no problem with them doing middle seat blocking in the past.... admittedly I've also had trouble getting ahold of GOOD reservation agents lately.
"Our Heathrow flights are very full at the moment" is the reason given... which still seems odd to me as there are still W fares available; however business and premium economy do appear to be sold out (showing C1 right now).
Only through flight seat assignment unless you are ticketed with separate flight coupons.
NZ does not guarantee seat blocking. When I called to select seats I put in a request for middle seat, which they noted. By the time we checked in the seat had been taken, but after the check in agent spoke with someone we got it blocked (passenger moved from middle to an aisle seat). On boarding someone else had taken the seat. The flight was almost totally full (maybe 2 empty seats in economy, both way near the back).
Unfortunately with the nature of the flight - being 2 legs on 1 number, plus NZ's ace up the sleeve for overbooking by having earlier flight to LAX also to juggle loads for LAX destination passengers as well as through passengers - it is difficult to judge loads based on fares available on NZ website. For our flight NZ was selling reasonably priced global saver fares online on the afternoon of day of departure - so I thought the seat block would hold. I was wrong. On the other hand, the return flight was half empty with many status pax getting a row of 3 or 4 to themselves, or sharing a row of 4 with just one other.