abaheti

were you able to get any "premium" economy seats? We have *G so hoping there might be some extra legroom in our future as we have a couple of economy legs coming. In business, all seats look to have aisle access so we will survive being separated for 8 hours even if not ideal.

brian_in_dc

My wife and I are both *G and we were traveling with three kids who aren't. All of us were on the same PNR. We were able to choose seats that AV flags as premium or special on the online seatmap. We got row 10 both for IAD-BOG on AV247 and BOG-SMR on AV9230. Both were A320 aircraft. So where I had been worried that we might've had to fly separated from one another because of the inability to reserve seats prior to 24 hours out, that wasn't an issue for any of our flights. However -- the bigger issue was that the legroom in Row 10 was super tight for me as a person who's 6'4". Seat pitch couldn't have been more than 31" and maybe only 30". Very uncomfortable for 5.5 hours. This many months later, I can't recall if there was any mechanism for me to pay extra for an exit row seat or if I opted not to do so because I didn't want to be separated from the kids and thought that row 10 might not be as bad as it was. On the way home, we flew Copa via PTY and paid a little extra for the exit row for my wife and I and seated the kids directly in the row front of us. That was much better.

nwflyboy

I'm running into this, too.

I just booked a United award flight, first leg in Coach on United metal, connecting in LAX, then LAX-BOG in Business class. United's website, all receipts, etc all very clearly indicate the Avianca leg is in Business class (and there's nothing about paying another fee at check-in - that's crazy talk). No way I'm going to fork out more money to pay for a seat - go ask United, I already paid them.

Right after booking, I went to Avianca's website and tried to pick seats there using Avianca's confirmation code. I had the same experience as abaheti - got the "oh oh, you booked your ticket with another airline, go away" message.

I do plan to check-in online when online check-in opens up -- but since the first leg of my itinerary is on United metal, I'll be checking in with United. They're certainly not going to do seat assignment on Avianca's plane.

brian_in_dc

The whole thing is super frustrating and to me seems to go against all the marketing claims of why you want to be loyal to a given alliance. That they've been able to integrate so many things across the alliance for so many years, like tagging luggage, lounge access between carriers, etc., but then leave you without the ability to assign a seat because you used miles on a partner carrier ---- is crazy. To an extent, I could tolerate it if you can't do it on the web but you can call and an agent could do it for you manually -- but they can't even do that. Getting to choose my seat in advance and being able to control for getting better-than-average legroom is one of the most important factors driving my loyalty to a carrier or alliance, so it would be nice if the different *A carriers could sort this out once and for all.

abaheti

Thanks! I just bit the bullet and switched our flights, both directions, to Copa in business and am already happy I did it. I have seats assigned (on UA web site, no less), very friendly phone agents, and less existential flyertalk type angst. :-)
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brian_in_dc

I�ve flown Copa few times through the years and it was pretty good. A little better than Avianca I think. Only issue is the lounge at PTY gets way overcrowded because of the massive number of connecting pax but the layovers tend to be short the way they run their schedules. They also have a nice new terminal at PTY that I think Copa mostly uses for the flights to/from the U.S. It still felt very new when we passed through there in February. Enjoy your trip!

the188

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