Online check-in seat selection AC & LX flights
 

We have flights booked later this month from YVR via YUL to ZRH.
YVR - YUL is operated by AC and YUL - ZRH by LX.

Since I don't want to pay the CHF 42 to reserve seats in advance on the YUL - ZRH flights, my question is if I will be allowed to select seats on the LX sector when doing the online check-in which will be done on the AC site or do I need to do a separate check-in on the LX site 23 hour before to select seats?

Flights are quite empty and I am not to concerned about availability as long as I can get 2 seats on either side since I am flying with my son but wouldn't want to wait until we get to the airport in case we can't book seats at least during the online check-in.

Thanks in advance in case someone has had this kind of AC/LX combination before.

You should generally be able to select seats on the 2nd flight when checking in for the 1st, so no need for a separate check-in. Although check-in usually only opens at T-24, it you have an inbound connection, you can actually check in as early as T-48 or T-36, something like that. So you should be okay to select seats for YUL-ZRH when you check in for YVR-YUL (which will check you in for the whole YVR-YUL-ZRH).

Thank you very much Adam, that is really helpful and makes sense. I'll wait until we can do the online check-in and I am also checking every couple of days if seats have been reserved but so far the Economy cabin looks completely open with only 3 - 4 seats reserved or blocked.

If I would see that for some reason the seats are being taken quite fast, I wouldn't mind spending the CHF 42 but for now I'll just wait.

Thanks again, really appreciate it.

I had an itinerary recently where the first flight was UA, so OLCI was through UA - second segment was LX and I was not able to select a seat during OLCI. It was assigned at the airport. The flight's probably empty anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about getting a bad seat assigned. I wasn't actually able to select any seat after T-48 through the LX website whether I wanted to pay or not, but ended up getting one of the SEN/HON seats assigned automatically.

I had a feeling that could be the case since SWISS seat selection information is not very clear especially when it is a multiple airline ticket.
I'll just wait for now and see if the flight is filling and seats are getting booked before our departure and if not, I'll just wait until we get to the airport and hopefully we can get 'good seats'.

By the way I am not SEN/HON, just Star Gold but hopefully they wold at least put us in 2 seats together.

It was an AP booking and I only had P25K on the flight in question, so no special status. I don't think you'll have any issue getting seated together. And you can ask to have the seats changed at the gate in YUL if you want to look for something better. I changed my already good assigned seat to one of the best ones when I arrived at the gate in ORD :D

Mine is an AP booking as well. Best value with lowest taxes and fees to get to Europe. :)

If this was a 'normal' year, I would probably pay the CHF 42 but with flights looking quite empty, I am not going to worry and do as you said, get seat assigned at the airport and change if needed.

Now I am just hoping that new cases are not increasing significantly over the next 3 weeks and we can still enter Europe without major restrictions.

Thank you!

Whenever OAL metal is involved, weird stuff can happen, but I've never had an issue with AC to LH group.

Both AC and LX are on Amadeus so the through-check should work seamlessly and you should be able to do seat selection when you do the initial check-in.

Maybe the first time I've read "should work seamlessly' and "AC" in the same sentence. I guess should is the qualifier

OP, How did your OLCI go?

Thank you for asking.

I will find out on Saturday morning since our flight is departing Sunday morning. :)
I'll defintely come back and report here how it went.

Just an update on this.
I wasn't able to get seats assigned for the LX flight during the online check-in, only for the domestic sector YVR - YUL.
I assume we'll be getting our seats for the LX flight either at check-in at YVR or latest during transit in YUL - hopefully not that latter.

Interesting. You might also want to check again on OLCI once it's 24h before the LX flight.

I am definitely going to try this afternoon, 24 hours before the LX flight is supposed to depart. Hopefully that will work.
When I last checked the seatmap just before the 48 hours window when LX closes the seatmap, LX had blocked all middle seats in the center section.

With the exception of one bulkhead seat, all other seats showed open but I know that doesnt mean much as people might just not have reserved their seats like myself and didn't want to pay the $ 42 - $ 110 for seat selection.

I'll report back after I try the LX check-in later today directly.


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Update: Tried to check-in for the LX flight 23 hours before departure to see if I can select seats but it is not possible.
Just get this notice:

Online check-in

Online Check-in for YVR-YUL is not supported. Please contact the operating airline or go to the airport to check in.

It's to bad that SWISS doesn't allow online check-in when tickets are booked with a partner airline but hopefully we can still get good seats either tomorrow at check-in at YVR, though I have a feeling that agents there won't have access to the LX seats, or latest during our transit in YUL at the transfer desk.

It's a little disappointing that within the Star Alliance things are not as seamless as hoped. :)

Looks like you had the same experience that I did. I'm sure the flight will be more than half empty, so you should get good seats assigned at check in. You might not be able to change them in YVR, but you definitely will at the gate in YUL. Enjoy your flight!

Thank you YYCCL3, that is very reassuring. We did check in at YVR and they couldn't do anything with regards to the LX seats.
We just got random seats in the center section.
Hopefully we can change at YUL like you said.

At least the Maple Leaf Lounge is open here which is quite nice and peaceful. :)

Success!
We just arrived in YUL, went outside into the departure hall since we have 4 hours in transit and were able to find a very nice SWISS service counter agent.
I asked him if the flight was full and his answer was "totally not" :)

He gave is great seats in the 2nd row of Economy (window & aisle). Very happy now and looking forward to our flight.

Just a final update on this experience.
Flight from YVR to YUL was almost full.

Flight from YUL to ZRH had only 12 people in the entire Economy Class, it was one of the best flights ever, wonderful service and nice new interior.
While this is great for us as passengers, I do feel really sorry for the airlines as they are having a really hard time but hope that they are at least able to carry a lot of cargo to make up for some of the losses.

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