I recently learned how to use this web site to determine the availibility of upgradeable (ie fare code "C") seats.

I have still not figured out how one can determine what actual seats (in the business class or economy cabins) have been taken (on a revenue or frequent flyer award or upgrade basis), and what actual seats have still not been taken.

I am particularly interested because my family and I have confirmed tickets to go to Bahamas vis Miami and Toronto from Ottawa on Xmas day. I am interested in getting the exact seating information by early Dec 24 AM at the latest, so that I can on a standby basis (ie without paying a penalty fee) book on a flight from Ottawa to Toronto on Xmas eve - I am concerned that I may get into trouble if by chance there is a winter storm that blows into Ottawa on Xmas day. I am not convinced that all of the AC flights will necessarily be full, just because it is one day before Xmas, as normally, I believe that AC is flying far from full capacity on this route (even on weekends?)?

PS-if there were standby seats available on flights from Ottawa to Toronto Island airport, should one take advantage of them in the winter time?

To see the actual seats you need to click "pick seats" on the fare quote page...then you can see the ACTUAL seats taken and available.

Dorian



------------------
flyers'places - restaurant, bar & hotel recommendations: http://www.flyersplaces.com
Dorian's Star Alliance RTW Price Chart: http://www.informationlab.com/rtw.htm
Blondebomber's Star Alliance Comparison Chart: http://members.home.net/deercroft/starall00.html

I looked at the flight itinerary page, which has the fares, (minimal number of) available seats for all fare classes (business class and economy) etc.

I could not find the "pick seats" function.

After you search for flights, you pick the flights that you want, you should come upon a itenary page showing you the total cost of the trip and the flights that you've picked, then there should be a "Select Seats" button on the left side and then a seperate window will open to show you the seat maps of the flights.

No you have to complete your itinerary (ie pick all the flights) and get to the pricing of your complete itinerary. Seat pick is at bottom of page there. This is the first step before actually confirming a booking.

Still having trouble.

I can with the advanced flight option get to the "reserve a ticket page", and then click on the "search for available flights" option, which will get me to the page with the available flights, with the number of seats available with each fare code (business and economy classes).

I do not know how to go on to select the flights, as part of the reservation steps (ie how do I confirm a booking?) - obviously, I need to be able to go through these steps, before I can see the "seat pick" option.

Are there a completely different set of steps for reserving/booking a ticket compared to just seeing the available number of seats at each fare code? Can one go through these steps, view the available seat selction, without actually purchasing a ticket?

FlyerGold II...

Not sure what you did wrong but here are the specific steps that I use everytime:

1. Log in

2. This will take you to the reservation page, select "flights" under advanced search option.

3. That should bring you to the "Reserve a roundtrip ticket" flight search page. Enter a flight, for example YYZ-YVR leaving Jan 1 and back Jan 2. I also set it to business class, display max 20 flight options and choose Air Canada specifically.

4. After you press search, it should bring you to a "Flight selections" page.

5. There's a little bubble beside each flight and you use that to select the flight that you want, let's say in this case, we select AC105 outbound and AC108 on the return, you click on that little bubble beside that flight. Then at the bottom of this page, there's a "Price itinerary" button, you press on that to move on after you've selected your desired flights.

6. That should bring you to the itinerary page which shows you the flights that you've picked and the total price. To the left of where they show you the total airfare, there's a "Select seats" button, you press that to get to the seat map.

I think that's as specific as I can get in writing without showing you in real person how to do it.... but if you are still stuck, let us know and we'll try to explain.

Thank you.

I will follow these steps, and report back to you on how I did.

I did it!

I never before went far enough down the Flight Selection screen to click on the price itinerary button.

I do have a few outstanding questions.

1. For economy class, does the seats with the green "premium" refer to full fare economy, and the blue seats refer to discounted econonmy?

2. Can one look at economy and business class simulatenously, in terms of seat selection - rather than picking first economy class, and then business class, for the flight selection, before the seat selection option is clicked on?

3. Does the seat selection in any way tell us which business class seats are available for upgrade, and which are only open for revenue purchase (separate from the J_C_ information seen in the table on the flight selection screen)?

FlyerGold... Glad you did it!

1. No.. anyone can pick those seats. If you call AC to make seat selection, they will give it to you without a problem.

2. No.. you will have to go through selection Y and then J to see the respective seat maps.

3. No.. Any available seats can be picked whether you are upgrading or buying a revenue. The only relevant information that is of interest to us FF is how many C is left and what seats are available to pick.

I wonder how one can have no upgradeable C class seats in business class, when 20/25 business class seats (as per the seat selection option) are open.

I am talking about the Toronto to Miami flight on Xmas day -AC 3231 - when the advanced flight option shows that business class has J9C0. The plane is a B767-300 ER.

I would have thought there would have been at least a good half-dozen upgradeable seats, with 20 seats available.

This is technically a CP flight and they are still showing C0 for most (all?) their flights -- Shareholder has reported on this elsewhere. Before merging the res systems into RESIII, this was also a problem. Not sure why it persists but it should disappear in the New Year once everyone is on the same upgrade, res etc system.

This has been a major problem recently for CP operated flights, discussion among us is that AC is doing that purposely to not let us use those any fare stickers and that is the only reason I could come up with. I think we'll know whether this speculation is true once Jan 1 comes.

I called AC reservations about AC 3231 on Xmas day. They stated that the economy class was oversold (not suggested by the seat selection option - many seats are available for purchase), and 8 seats were blocked for possible operational upgrade because of the oversold economy seats (again, the seat selection option shows 20 business class seats are open, and only 5 seats are purchased).

Can anyone explain the discrepancy with what the AC reservations agent told me, and what the seat selection option shows in the figure, in terms of available economy class, and business class seats?

Air Canada is still accepting bookings for AC3231 (and for all other YYZ-MIA flights on Dec25) in both J and economy. Flight 3231 probably is oversold, but not sold out. (There is a difference.)

The seat mapping probably shows empty seats because these seats are not assigned yet. Not every booking results in a pre-assigned seat.