Bullspread

Hi,
Hereunder is the seat selection I got proposed for a ORY/MRS 2 months in advance .
It seems that first row seats have a separate tag versus the other seats located in the first tier of the plane.
As platinum ULTIMATE, all seats are proposed for free .
Does someone know if specific rules/fees apply to first row seats ?

Goldorak

Very strange as row 1 is clearly the best.

mama974

I am single platinum and I also saw a distinction for the first row on ORY-TLS. It was also free for me

merijn

As i fly between AMS and Asia on a regular basis i always booked exit seat in economy at the time of booking with a discount as i'm a Gold member. ( as i really want to have a exit seat)
Does this now mean that i can't book at the seat at the time of the booking anymore with a discount ?
This would be a real downgrade for me and a possible deal breaker as the risk of not getting a seat which you want in the last 3 days is almost guaranteed.

smartytravel

This is exactly what it means. All these changes are not an upgrade. They are meant to force you to pay more.

nldogbert

With these changes, does a FB Gold member need to pay for the front forward seats (not Economy Comfort) It used to be free, but strangely selecting for my travel companion, Gold - it is asking for a whopping €12.

Cheers!

etiene

Until T-72, yes. I think it was this thread where the FB Director explained, but the discounts are gone in favour of this new "free at T-X" model. Not sure if the two were incompatible for technical reasons or if it was a choice.

For me - and now I've reached Gold - this is a definite upgrade. I'd never pay - even with the discount - so access at T-72 for free is great. Of course all of my travel is short haul, so rather different from the poster who lost their discount on long-haul exit seats.

nldogbert

This is really in my opinion a big downgrade for Gold members - me as Plat this means I have to also take the burden of this. I did not realize this was the case, as I thought it was only impacting the Eco Comfort seats when I first heard about this. I will certainly write and complain to Customer service - just for the sake to complain.

Cheers!

etiene

Actually that's fair - I was essentially only considering Economy Comfort, which I generally saw going out full of late check-in normies while Gold members merely got to know at booking that they'd have a Front Standard seat [mostly by watching my wife's flights as she's been Gold for a year]. Her first flights in the new regime coming up actually, but the curtain shifted forwards to allow a nice clear run at EC for her on both flights this Friday - so that seems like a win over the old system. [In fact, her first flight has now changed from a -800 to -900 as has booted everyone previously in FS back three rows leaving loads of empty EC]. A hybrid system with the old free FS/discount EC from booking and the new free EC at T-72 would obviously be preferable - but does seem a bit greedy tbh.

I think it's a bit rubbish for Silvers though - free FS at T-24 is actually six hours after normies could get randomly assigned there upon check-in. I don't know the protocol for seat assignment there though - are standard seats free to choose at check-in or assigned randomly?

Fabo.sk

I would prefer a hybrid system. I bought EC religiously at the discount (all shorthaul though, I don't fly longhaul these days), now I will not. Not that it's an issue, EC is empty at T-72 and especially so if you fly on a C-light flight.

I don't think Silvers will be impacted much. Seating is only autoassigned at the time checkin is commenced as far as I can tell, and EC is only assigned after less-prefered seat classes are full.
So there are only three options -
1. EC is full of Plat, Gold and paying customers at T-24. Silver can not get a seat there but neither will randoms with eco light tickets and no FFP.
2. Back is somehow full at or before T-24 and randoms with eco light tickets are assigned EC. But, because back is full, so are Silvers. So no harm no foul there.
or most commonly
3. Most people have not yet checked in at T-24 and there are some EC seats available. Silvers can grab them if they want. Randoms with eco light and no FFP will still get EC, but only if the back is full at the time they check in.

Silvers will in this way "suffer" from a much larger proportion of Golds going for EC, if they remember to select between T-72 and T-24, but then previously they only got 25% off so in that way they are less impacted than Golds, who have to pay 2x as much if they want to secure EC in advance.

etiene

Silvers don't get EC. This was a little unclear in the press releases if you ask me, but I had my last flight as a Silver last week and indeed could not get EC.

Not that your analysis all goes out of the window, but it should all be about Front Standard and Exit Row seats - which are presumably less likely to remain available.

CyBeR

Greedy from KL.

Silvers are barely impacted -- they always had to pay, the only difference is now they have to pay 25% more which is a pretty marginal difference if you ask me, except I suppose at the very highest-end of the spectrum of EC pricing where it can be around €25 or so.

Golds are fine on short-haul where, just before the 72hr window opens, the EC seating tends to be expanded from one row (which is invariable already at least partially taken at that time by paid or plat customers) to whatever rows they can fit behind the C cabin, and usually ample seating is available. So golds now simply wait out the 72hr mark and select an EC seat for free.

The problem however is long haul. These seats are static (they don't adjust to C cabin size as all cabins are fixed) and, owing to the much longer flight durations, much more popular than they are on short haul where many (non-status) people don't consider the extra expense worth it for the short duration of the flight. So for those flights, golds may want to purchase the seat anyway instead of waiting, to be assured of one, and they now have to pay double what they used to.

etiene

Fair. I haven't travelled long-haul Y on AF/KL for about seven years now - before I ever travelled J. How much do EC fees cost on long-haul?

I guess the question is over what proportion of flights EC seats remain available for Golds at T-72. Perhaps a rather earlier release on long-haul would have been a better approach, however that presumably devalues things for Plats [if we assume they are on average even later to book tickets than Golds].

maalloc

I haven’t flown much KL Y since Covid but my 2018-2019 memory was it was quite frequent to have a <50% EC load on 777 routes to Asia.
It was quite common - and nice - to have the adjacent seat empty, which I guess we can kiss goodbye now.

That said, it will be good not to have « tourists » as seat mates too… It always was a gamble.

etiene

That depends entirely upon the number of Golds who were previously refusing to pay even with a discount - I see no particular reason to assume that this change inevitably means EC will be full to the brim.