bruce80

A data point to add to the "reserving seats when it's not possible do do so online" from me - I had booked an A3 award (through the A3 website) KIX-ICN-HKG in business for 2 people, and were unable to assign seats myself after logging into the OZ website. After looking the flights up on ExpertFlyer, I saw that the relatively small C cabin on both flights (operated by A330) had already started to fill up, so I decided to call the reservation hotline in Frankfurt.

Actually, this proved to be a slightly weird experience - after someone picked up, I expected them to answer in either english or german, but instead I was greeted by some completely unintelligible chatter in a foreign language (korean?) which I suspect wasn't even directed at me, because it sounded quite distorted. I suspected a problem with the phone line and just called out "Hello?". After that, the agend replied me in accent-free german "Guten Tag, was kann ich für Sie tun?". This already felt a bit strange, and while she clearly knew what she was doing (much unlike the agent at LH's FTL hotline that I had called shortly before this to reserve seats for another flight), but all her answers etc. were pretty curt and not really friendly. Basically, after asking her if I was right with her in order to reserve seats, she asked for the booking code and then "ok, and for whom would that be?" (instead of asking "what's the name of the passenger?"), and that continued through the entire call (which was actually quite short). She also didn't really ask me where I wanted to sit, just told me that she could assign 2HK on both flights and after I agreed, she just said "ok, it's in the system now" without even asking whether there was anything else she could do. The entire call felt pretty much like I was disturbing her at whatever she was currently doing.

Hence, if you need to call this particular hotline, don't expect to be treated particularly friendly, but at least they seem to be quite efficient (not sure whether other hotlines or even other agents working the Frankfurt hotline wouldn't provide a nicer experience).

Actually, there's also something I noticed about the seatmap effect discussed between sol95 and ExpertFlyer - EF had actually shown seats 2HK as "blocked" for both segments (along with the entire row 1 which are obviously bassinet seats), however, those were the seats I later got from the hotline. However, this might not even be a bug, as those seats might be blocked as priority seats, and I have my *G number on the reservation (which might also be the reason why the hotline agent more or less insisted on assigning those seats to me). We should probaby check back whether those seats still display as "blocked" or whether they are now just "occupied". Flights would be OZ113 KIX-ICN on 13th of June 2018 and OZ745 ICN-HKG on the same day.

jon503

I have mostly had weird experiences calling the FRA hotline as well. They do first start with Korean when they pick up "아름다운 사람들 아시아나항공. 무엇을 도와드릴까요?..." (Their Korean slogan about wonderful people, Asiana airlines, followed by how can I help you). You usually get the desk at the airport actually, since the FRA office is tiny. They have German-Koreans fielding the phone. I didn't experience anyone particularly unfriendly (though I have low expectations whenever doing anything service related in Servicewüste Germany), but they have a poor track record of getting things solved for me. They were better than the Seoul office at adding Rail & Fly to my tickets, but for most other requests about booking, they said they either didn't have the rights or ability to do anything and pointed me either to the Seoul office or sometimes even to a travel agency in Frankfurt.

The check-in staff in FRA, on the other hand is wonderfully nice and competent - at least the actual Asiana staff, the FRA airport staff is hit and miss. They know my by now and always make sure I get a nice seat and help me solve any issues in a friendly and efficient way.

zeer0

They have been very quick and competent in solving issues for me by email. I would recommend that if it's not something that is asap. Their English is also very good over email.

geoshina

I have just called the Asiana Office in London and the lady could not have been more helpful. It also took no time to get an agent and everything was done in less than 2/3 minutes.
(I'm happy)

thefiverivers

I have an award ticket booked through UA with flights on OZ and TG (SFO-ICN, ICN-BKK) and I couldn’t select my seats on the OZ website. Absolutely terrible design and site IMO, however I was able to log onto the TG website and select seats for both legs (which I was able to confirm on the OZ site and UA too).

So try using the TG site if you have any travel with them. It’s much easier to use albeit with a few random error messages that don’t seem to have any effect on seat selection.

geoshina

I did that, but in my case only the first part of the A380 upper deck would appear.

thefiverivers

So this might be an obvious question, and I am not insulting your intelligence at all, but did you have an option to view the main deck seating? On the 747 flight that I am on, it has two sections for seating, one says upper deck and one says main deck and when you click on them it shows you the seat maps for those sections.

geoshina

Nope dude. Nothing appeared to me. And that's also because only the upper deck in the Asiana A380 has business class in it.

Gasolin

A lot of the seats are blocked by their system until a couple of days before the flight. After that, they can put requests to the desk in the departure airport for some special assignment.
There is someone at Asiana in Korea taking care of my wife and she always get seats for us in front rows (8/9 A or 8/9K) for the international flights on the A380.
Those seats are always blocked when searching from the website and if you call, most likely you're told they're not available too.

motoridersd

Ah! Thanks for the tip. We got 16E and 16F, but will call again closer to the date of our flight to see if we can get better seats.

sol95

I think they are able to assign it to passengers with OZ status. I ask, and usually get, 8A/K when I'm on the a380. I prefer the row 8 as it's in the smaller J cabin and is the window seat closer to the window, not the aisle.

Gasolin

I know I know but when your wife wants 8A/K, you have to go to 9A/K. The "survival" of the couple depends on it .

sol95

if I'm travelling with my wife, she insists on the two "honeymoon" seats in the middle...

radiowell

JamieDass

Just to add another data point: I have an upcoming Aeroplan reward reservation and I was once able to select seats on the OZ leg of the trip but then was not allowed to modify it in any way once they were selected. Then to confuse things even further there was an equipment change and I got new seats auto-assigned. Luckily they're the seats I would have chosen myself because I still can't select seats through the OZ mobile or desktop site, or the app. However:

My booking has flights on NH, OZ, TK, LX, and AC. I just tried my PNR on the LH website and it seems to be letting me reserve seats on the OZ leg and on 2 of my 5 TK legs. Weirdly it is showing the seats I was assigned by OZ and letting me choose others but it's not showing the seats I selected for my TK legs on the TK site. (Although It is showing those seats as occupied.)

So it seems you don't always need an LH leg, but perhaps the LX flights are effectively the same thing? Although if that were the case I'd expect to be able to select my LX seats which I can't…