ramsfan

I am having to come home quickly from New Zealand and ditched my original route via BKK HKG YVR YOW ( hope my Thai Air refunds work out) and bought AUK LAX IN business ( ouch) and did LAX YYZ YOW in business on AP points. I am hoping for my LAX YYZ business seat (all but 1 sold) but booked bulkhead aisle premium seat in case. The bizarre thing is they charged me on line $60!!! I will ask when I get to LAX as I do not want to call from AUK withcanadian roaming charges. But I was surprised. The explanation with the charge pretty clearly says no charge for premium economy for SE on a points ticket , and you would think if you paid for business they would At least give a premium economy for free , SE or not . Anyone else run into this?

alc

OP, in case you do want to call AC from where you are right now - use Skype to call AC toll-free number. Or even sign-up for Fongo and you can call almost any numbers (non toll-free) in Canada.

yyznomad

A bit confused - for LAX YYZ I think you meant Preferred Seating?
AFAIK NA does not offer PE as an actual sold product with AC.
I have never been charged for Preferred Seating in AC metal on an AE booking.

lcohen999

When you book on points, your status is usually not recognized

They have to do it manually

superangrypenguin

Correct on both fronts. NA doesn't have a sold product for premium economy, its all preferred seating. And yes, you haven't been charged preferred seating on AC metal for an AE booking as you are a super elite member

Shareholder

From this and other posts about elites being charged when flying on award tickets, AC needs to send out a memo to all customer service staff (at the airport and phone centres) to remind them all elite benefits apply and this include supplementary charges.

My status is always displayed on award ticket boarding passes no matter which STAR airline I fly, even AC. The problem occurs if one's award ticket is issued from someone else's account, your own account number/status can't be displayed or even put onto the PNR.

gcashin

This is a common glitch on Aeroplan reward tickets. Preferred seating is supposed to be complimentary for SE's on any ticket, but I've found that most of the time on reward tickets, the system tries to charge you. I've always called in to have an agent override the charge. Frustrating for a simple seat selection request, but that seems to be the only way to address it when the system thinks you should be charged. Another IT glitch that would save a bunch of calls to AC reservations and reduce their wait times if they ever fix it.

For the LAX-YYZ where you're seated in economy, you should ask an agent at LAX to put you on the upgrade list so you may get a seat in J at the gate if there's space.

gcashin

Even if the status does show correctly on the reservation, I've still found it doesn't handle preferred seating charges properly. The last two times I've booked a Y reward ticket on AC metal, I had to call in to get them to override the preferred seating charges, as the system was prompting a charge if I tried to select preferred seats.

canadiancow

I booked two tickets within minutes of each other. One let me select preferred seats for free, the other did not.

It's consistently inconsistent

yyznomad

Dear AC IT - you suck. Can you kindly improve? Please and thank you.

superangrypenguin

penguins will fly before then. AC has said time and time again that it's not worth investing in

yyznomad

That is an official party line from AC?! Hard to believe. Who said this?

superangrypenguin

Here you go. Maybe he just meant the seat assignment investment, but you can see all up that if it doesn't increase revenue, AC won't spend a dime on IT.

Source: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/23563240-post13.html

I hope their mentality changes. We've said many times on here that you could spend a dollar on IT and save on phone agents, amongst other things (like oh I dunno, ordering a SPML without calling in?)

My memory really needs to be used for other things

InTheAirGuy

March 15, 2015
Dear all Air Canada Staff, Gate Agents Representatives, Partner Airlines, and Others,

We need to put into perspective our recent changes to our relationship with Aeroplan.

We are writing this because it is soon to a bright day in April, and the clocks will be striking thirteen.

When it does, everyone must understand that the Air Canada and Aeroplan relationship is somewhat, well, not working. And here on Flyertalk, all we hear are speeches, shouting, singing, banners, posters.

What you must understand is that at just this moment it had been announced that Air Canada is not really bitter with Aeroplan. Air Canada was upset with Canadian Pacific. In the day before, Aeroplan was an ally. But not always. There's the east, in Montreal, and the west, in Vancouver.

In that context, there is, of course, no admission that any change had taken place.

Merely it should become known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that the Star Alliance, and not Skymiles, was at fault..

Geoflying

As a relatively newly minted SE I have to ask this question. If I need to call in to get a seat assignment issue like this resolved should I be calling the SE Reservations line or the concierge? Is that an appropriate thing to ask the concierge to do?