Checked in online for 4 people, 2 linked reservations. Our seats were all over the plane. I’ve been lucky to always be assigned preferred seating for my standard fares as 50k, which was the case for 2 of 4, as the other 2 were basic fares. I call to try to move things around so we are seated together (theres lots of available seats), and the agent offers to move us but then tells us there’s a charge. We decline the charge, he says he’ll look into it, and then of course the line disconnects. When I call back the new agent says our seats have been moved to the seats that require a charge and that there’s nothing he can do to move us back, of course. And of course he can’t change us back to the initial configuration prior to the change of seats we did not agree to pay for. We are now checked in to these preferred seats with boarding passes but I am worried we will be forced to pay at the airport. I would be happy to be in the initial configuration where we are seated all over the plane, but it seems this is no longer possible. The extra leg room of the preferred seats is a huge plus and I am hesitant to change to non-preferred seats to avoid the charge as we were initially assigned preferred seats. Any insights would be much appreciated.

This seems like a new and unique situation. That said, I find it unlikely you will be forced to pay; their systems aren't that tight. And your checked in, so whatever technical block there may have been has been bypassed.

Take the W and move on.

Agreed.

I don't think any of us know definitively, but I think you probably got away with one here and will be okay. If you have a board pass with a seating assignment, you should be good. But do circle back and let us know...

Thanks for the input, I’m hoping all will go smoothly and definitely was reassured when the boarding passes were received. But after almost two hours on the phone with AC yesterday I am dreading the possibility of having to deal with yet another hiccup.

I will update here post-trip.

Agreed

Just reporting back to confirm that the preferred seats were assigned on our boarding passes, and no payment was required. I guess there was no need to stress about it. We had a horrific experience at the gate with an Air Canada agent who must have been having a bad day unfortunately, but assigned seats were not a concern.

Just out of curiosity, what was the horrific experience at the gate all about and how did the GA handle it?

at check-in the AC agent gave one of our party a second print out of my boarding pass instead of their own, which we did not realize until we were boarding (zone 2). When the issue was identified, I waited behind with them (after I had scanned my boarding pass) to get it sorted out (I also had all the boarding passes on my AC app so was going to get that out). One of the gate agents decided to go on a power trip and force me to board, or else be deplaned and forced to wait until everyone else had boarded (I had no interactions with this gate agent prior, she just came out of nowhere guns blazing). Of course she was yelling for reasons unknown. I wasn’t going to board (or fly) without this individual so I waited just before the jet bridge. This gate agent literally follows me to tell me to board, instead of 1) boarding other passengers or 2) dealing with the situation with the last member of my party. She then starts harassing my party member, forcing them to measure their (clearly undersized) carry-on while everyone else is able to board without doing the same. Eventually this person I was travelling with found a copy of the boarding pass by email, and the other, not insane, gate agent was quick to usher them ahead.

I’ve never had an experience like that, completely unacceptable behaviour from the gate agent. I’ve reported it to AC and hope they take meaningful action.

Glad you reported it...expectation of 'meaningful action', uh, I'd say that should be pretty low...GA is in a union and if they are even ever questioned about the incident get to provide the only view, theirs, and you will not be contacted for rebuttal, so yeah, that's not going anywhere.

Sorry you had that experience, but also not surprised...you get some real doozies working the gate sometimes...

That’s good to know, if nothing else writing the complaint was therapeutic!