Flying main cabin: PVG - ORD, cannot get seat allocation
 

Hi, wondering if anyone knew why my agent is telling me that I cannot get a window or aisle economy seat reserved for an upcoming PVG - ORD flight? Agent says that return ORD - PVG is fine, but outbound from China is not possible. Agent also checked with AA to confirm this, who also said that I could not do it online. Is my only option going to the airport at check in to do this? Thanks a lot.

ps, I did check out the FAQ section and could not find an entry re this problem.

AA withholds some seats for premium frequent flyer passengers. They also hold back some seats on every flight for gate assignment day of flight. It's possible no aisle or window seats are available for general reservation. Get the AA confirmation code from your travel agent and try to reserve a seat yourself.

https://www.aa.com/aa/reservation/fi...ationAccess.do

I would assume that all the windows/aisle seats are already taken/reserved for AA elites.

A CX silver = OW Ruby and I don't recall if AA allows this status access to Ruby. As noted in the OW rules, this ability varies from airline to airline. However, you should make sure that your CX number appears on your reservation.

Are you flying later this month? If I remember correctly, the PVG-ORD leg is usually very full in the summer (especially July and August), as there are many students coming (back) to the US before the start of the fall semester. There will be more empty seats starting September.

What day?
Did u call AA?
Did u look on line at AA.COM?
Maybe u have a lousy agent.

1) I called AA. They said that it was a busy flight (flight to ORD is Sun 30th Aug) and that there were no aisle or window seats available on the whole plane. The man did say though that there have been a portion reserved for Advantage premium status flyers. I asked him about my One World status (actually I am 60miles shy of Ruby via Cathay - due to too living in China and flying mostly locally). The only way for me to reserve a seat he said was to ring the day before the flight or go and check in as early as possible but no more than 2.5 hours prior to flight time. They are aware of my "status".

2) I looked online at AA.com. At first I could not go to "select seat" section as my ticket was booked but not issued. Now it is issued and I can go through to the seat selection section. However, the only available seats (15 seats in total) showing are in the middle of the aircraft in E and F. There are some seats showing "preferred only"

And there is a note......."** Preferred seats are available to AAdvantage Executive Platinum, AAdvantage Platinum, AAdvantage Gold, AAirpass members and all passengers holding tickets with a Y or B booking code."

So it looks like the only option is to try the night before the flight, and perhaps at check in time.

3) It is our company agent...don't know if they can do any more than they can.

Thanks everyone for their input and help.

Cheers,

TPLVN