alhcfp

Same situation on award flight. Changed to AA PLT number on Finnair.

aa.com seat map greyed out. called AA res. Git smart guy who said "Its not letting me do this, but I know a work around"

It worked, I got my MCE seat, but all other seats are GREY.

When calling AA, if rep so not know work around HUCA

TheBOSman

So, just to note my experience. I checked in for my flight Saturday about 24 hours before. Despite several totally empty rows in regular seating, never mind Preferred or MCE (I don't have status anyway), AA put me into 28E on a 737 . That was even with 28A-D, and 28F all available, along with other full rows. I ended up having the whole row to myself as plane was maybe 50% full and nobody was coming down to the third to last row to sit next to someone .

As an experiment, I checked in at a kiosk at the airport for my return flight yesterday (Sunday) on the same ticket, about 2-2.5 hours before departure. A few regular aisle seats available, along with a number of windows with empty middle seats, and again several rows of MCE and Preferred empty. I got 24E on a 737 . I went to an agent and got switched to an aisle seat, but it had two other people in the row. Fortunately the middle seat person moved out after the door closed as some shuffling occurred. 24E had 24D and 24F filled when I checked in, so despite a number of windows with empty middles, AA put me in a middle between two people. Ignoring the crappiness it would have been for me, it is also lessening the experience for 24D and 24F unnecessarily. Simply stupid to give those seat assignments as it only created more work for the agents. This isn't on the BA issue as much as it is on AA's seating algorithm. And AA won't get a dime from me for a MCE seat assignment as I'm 5'7 and don't really need it .

Also, unless your flight is jammed full, you're not getting MCE. I'd think your chances of ending up in two middles are higher than getting into MCE. Just my honest opinion.

I'd recommend everyone call the instant you get notice that your itinerary/PNR has ticketed to get seats. Call, Twitter, whatever. I was fortunate my flights were empty and I know AA very well as a former EXP so I went ahead and took my chances as an experiment. Based on my results, I would not recommend it.

hyperzulu

Thanks for the feedback. Our "experiment" flight is mostly full. Only unassigned seats are a handful of aisle/window standard seats, only one is in the middle. The rest is MCE. All seats are paid seats within rows 8-17. I guess there is still time for a shuffling of seats before I'm able to check-in, so I'll see what happens. Hopefully worst case scenario is my wife or I end up with an aisle/window seat and can trade with someone else to sit together. If not it's not the end of the world.

mattjmac

Thanks for all of the info. Thankful for this thread. Was able to easily be assigned seats just now by using a Twitter DM. Agent assigned us decent seats in the middle sections of regular economy within about 15 minutes of tweeting

Rd3

Just confirming--I went on Finair's website & removed my BA# and replaced it with my AA#, and the flight now shows up on my AA account--that means I'll receive elite benefits, correct? Flight is BWI-CLT so not too concerned about seating, just want free checked bags, precheck, etc.

TheBOSman

Yes you will receive all normal elite benefits, Precheck, checked bags, etc. No issues there, I got precheck for both of my flights above.

Cmb3248

I have a flight from DFW to GDL I booked on AA metal using Avios. BA redirected me to AA.com, and Aa.com showed all grayed out. I changed the FF# to AAdvantage using Finnair and still all seats were gray. Tweeted AA at 12:20 am asking for the only standard aisle seat left (no status for me), and they replied back 18 minutes later saying it was done. Twitter definitely seems like the way to go.

3Cforme

Its important to consider how quickly Finnair updates the record to AA. AA doesn't even issue tickets instantly. I don't assume it reflects changes from partners to FF numbers in real time.

Cmb3248

It was pretty close to real time for me. Maybe a minute lag at most.

skicowboys

I have a similar issue with an additional twist. I booked a AA flight from PHX to LAS return, the o/b leg in economy (T class) as no first available, with the return in first (U class). I could select the First seats with no issue, but the economy leg no joy as others have reported. Also I noticed that I have 3 bags x 32kg for my First leg and zero for the eco T class. Has anyone else noticed this?
I phoned the AA line in the UK, as I'm UK based and they selected MCE seats for me as I'm OWE. I asked about the baggage and as I'm OWE i'm ok, but surely it's incorrect for a reward ticket to have a zero checked baggage allowance or not?

tmm1012

BA.com doesn't accurately display baggage allowance for AA flights based on your OneWorld status, it simply shows the standard allowance for passengers based on ticketed cabin...and it's a bit out of date anyway. Domestic First Class only allows 2 x 32 kg now (I think it was previously 3 x 32 kg), but OneWorld Emerald does actually allow 3 x 32 kg, regardless of your cabin (and regardless of it being an award ticket). You can confirm on the AA website - but no need to worry about what BA.com says.

skicowboys

Thank you for letting me know

lkar

I ran into this a few weeks ago and just thought there was some kind of weird glitch. I called in and they were able to assign seats on the phone. It just happened again today and so I figured it was a thing and found this thread.

Anyway, I tried putting in my AA number on finnair and that didn't help but the twitter team helped me!

schistosomiasis

Same thing happened to me. Used the aa app and phoned mobile support as suggested above. It took them about 10 minutes but they reported it as a IT issue so if enough people phone in I'm hoping they'll eventually fix it for everyone.

Jase0581

It appears they may have finally fixed the issue. I have a QF issued ticket and was receiving the same error message about being unable to assign seats and having the seat map greyed out for the AA flights. This morning I was able to assign the seats via the AA website.