How accurate is the "Preview Seat Availability" function on AC's site?
 

For previewing availability / farebuckets EF seems to be the gold standard.

How accurate is the "Preview Seat Availability" function on AC's site where it brings up the aircraft seat map before you buy a fare?

From my experience, it's good at showing what seats have been selected and are available - if a seat shows as available, then I've been able to select it as soon as I make my purchase.

In other words, it seems to be driven by the same data as the Seat Selection tool itself.

What a lot of people talk about with it, is that's it's not accurate for identifying how many seats are available, as there may be many people with unassigned seats.

So for seeing what specific seats are available, it's good - for fare availability, it's EF.

Thanks for the response.

How about for EUp Availability?

Based on what you're saying I assume it isn't great for previewing EUp availability then.

No, I would never use the seat map / preview for that; EF would be the most accurate with the R-space.

At the same time, the tool to preview upgrade availability based on status (to show if eUpgrade space is available or if you'll be waitlisted) has been mostly accurate for me. However, there have been several posts on here lately where other people have seen that they can upgrade, but when they purchase they're waitlisted.

That sounds like the ODRMS at work, described in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-c...d-segment.html

I expect the Y seats are not accurate in showing how many has been sold as Tango cannot select seats for free when making booking.

Neither are accurate.

For example, I just booked SFO-YYC (UA metal) through Aeroplan, in J.

I was not assigned a seat.

There are so many ways to book a ticket without being assigned a seat, even when you're eligible.

Rookie / Noob question... where is said tool? Haha.

When you search for flights on aircanada.com, there is an option that you can select when the flight options are presented. ("Display only fares eligible for upgrade")

Once this is selected (and the page reloads...) then just select a flight option and it will show a waitlist or immediate upgrade.

Appreciate all the help guys.

One more question:

Flying LHR > YVR this Saturday (12th).
I'm E50k on a Flex fare. Just tried to request an EUp to PE. Got immediately Waitlisted.

When I go onto AC's site and do what Monkai just described, it shows Latitude fares have space to EUP to PE but Flex don't?

What's the explanation behind this? Just trying to learn / wrap my head around the intricacies of how EUP availability / priority works etc...

Thanks.

Flex fare upgrades into R space
and Latitude upgrades into Z space I believe

If you use expert flyer - it'll tell you how many seats are available in each fare class.

That's for business class. CanadianMike is upgrading into premium economy, which I thought was just N.

Yeah exactly, I kinda thought the same.

Is there an additional farebucket Latitude EUPs into for PE?