You beat me to saying it ;-) As I have said on myriad previous occasions - if you want to fly in a premium cabin book a premium cabin!!!!

Ah thanks for clarifying that. Before this day I was under the impression that OW sapphire would allow free seat selection at premium economy (like with Finnair). I seriously thought it was sapphires and up that were sitting there, sadly I was wrong... Preliminary seat blocking would be easy to implement coding wise if/as there is free seats in the plane.

You are confused because Finnair does not provide Premium Economy.
It provides Economy with the option to pay for Economy Comfort seats within the economy cabin. This is very different to CX: which provides extra legroom (exit row/bulk head seats) in Economy class as well as another separate class called Premium Economy.

Finnair: Business Class, Economy Class
Cathay Pacific: First Class (some flights), Business Class, Premium Economy Class, Economy Class.

Use avios to fly on KA - seat selection?
 

I am ow Emerald (AA EP).
I booked using BA avios (on BA site) a KA flight in Y. BA automatically assigned me a seat that I want to change.

After reading up-thread, still have questions?
1. Who to contact (BA or CX) to change seats and enter my AA FF # (to reflect status)?
2. Can this be done via email? if so where would I find it?

Thanks.

You could manage your booking on CX website. Add your RL to your booking and then change. Can't guaranteed all seats will be available to you though.

Thanks.

Yes, I did get to the seat map page. Only to see ALL seats (except mine) were blocked. Thought there might be another trick or tip. :D

Just booked two award tickets in PE and Y with BAEC on CX

i used to the booking code in Cathay and able to select Exit Seats with Y and the First Row on PE

If not possible to change / select seats online I so far never had problems when calling CX directly (when on redemption bookings).
They have been always happy to reserve the seats I wanted (if still available of course).

Was told by CX agent that some PE seats are now reserved for R class fares.

Just called Cathay. I have a DFW-HKG-MNL flight booked, DFW-HKG on AA (with a hopeful points+$ upgrade) and then HKG-MNL on Cathay. They could see my AA# but were not able to allow me to pick seats for free even though I have AA-Plat/OW-Sapphire. They claimed they didn't see my status. Is this because my fare class is so low ("O"), or just ineptitude? The flight isn't so long that I really care too much (711 miles), but would prefer the exit row if possible.

Can you access the booking on the CX website?

Ask CX to remove your FF number and add it again.

Even more strange, once in HKG, they could not add my AA number (and status) to my ticket. The same thing has happened to me numerous times flying LATAM in Colombia, I just chalked it up to their ineptitude but perhaps something is weird with my number/account.

Encountered a slightly different variation of this as I've got LAX-HKG-SIN, where HKG-SIN is an AA codeshare flight number. Used to be that I could select any seat in the app/website (including extra legroom) as an Emerald, even on an AA codeshare. Then about a year or two ago, I would get an error in the app/website to contact the operating carrier for seats, even though CX is the operating carrier. Still, I could call in and get any seat assigned.

Fast forward to today and the CX agent mentioned that seat assignments were chargeable and even with the Emerald charge waiver, I could only select standard seats.

Never encountered this before -- is it that the S, N, Q, O seat assignment charges now apply to AA codeshares as well (maybe I was just lucky with fare class before), or should I have tried to remove/reload my AA Emerald number? Are Emeralds still eligible for extra legroom seats even on those lower fare classes?

Call again. Doesn’t sound right. This is the policy:

https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...room-seat.html