ernestnywang

You should be able to select the priority seats. If you can't do it on the app, try the website.

Ausriver

FlyPointyEnd

a friend recently called the Marco Polo hotline, he was informed it's really blocked for DM members. Not sure if it's just fluff...

ernestnywang

I was told the same thing (DM only) on a HKG-CAN flight in Feb., although I was booked in M class and only got a membership anniversary upgrade, so a J seat was already better than what I booked.

I wonder if it may be flight-specific depending on how many GOs there are in J. Say if there are 8 F seats, and there are 4 DMs and 6 GOs, with more than 4 seats available. In this case, KA can afford to leave 4 seats unoccupied to make sure all GOs are treated equally, whereas if the total number of DMs and GOs is less than 8 or if they need all seats occupied, they would be more willing to let GOs or even SLs be seated in F.

hahaboy123

mlxgzzz

I'm CX Silver and contacted CX via Messenger to secure 1A for my flight KA620 operated by 3-class A330. The CX staff on facebook selected the seat immediately after I provided my ticket info. BTW it's a BA award ticket and I attached the ticket to my MPC account on CX website.

QRC3288

indeed.

I doubt this will happen to you, but heads up...I've had a previously-assigned? passenger demanding my seat on that return flight, KA621. I had nothing to do with the seat swap; when I arrived at the airport, HGH ground had stuck me and my traveling companies (one is DM, the other was on a cash ticket) in the "F" cabin, as they do almost without fail if the plane is 33R.

I was given 1K and the pax came by says it was his seat, but didn't produce a BP. I've seen this movie before I assume the guy is mistaken. Call the FAs over. Confirm it's my seat in the manifest. Ask for the passenger's BP. He eventually pulls out BP with a seat farther back in J. He says his BP is a mistake (??) and actually 1K is his seat, he is now fumbling through his phone for confirmation. Crew confirm his name, seat # aligns with seat farther back in J and mine in 1K, they go by what the manifest says and move him along. Solved. I'm not 100% what happened, but unless the guy was totally a crazy guy, my best guess is he probably selected that seat during OLCI or earlier somehow, but HGH ground staff swapped him out. I've flown this route 6-8x a year for the last decade and usually take that flight, for years call it 2015-2018 it was being served by 33R almost daily sold as 2-class. It is less predictable lately. And I actually don't even think as a DM I haven't flown in the "F" section on KA621! Despite never booking that F section in advance.

That front cabin is very specific to the ground staff. HKIA is less personal IME and I don't think "booting" people happens, at least not that I know of. But at certain outports (HGH being one) they are pretty good about reserving it for Diamonds, and I suspect they boot people out if bookings have been made. Last year I saw an almost identical situation to the one I experienced with the passenger in 1A this time. I was in 2A. Another pax comes along claiming 1A was his seat but boarding pass is for farther back, guy in 1A is Diamond, DM's boarding pass and name is on the manifest confirmed by crew. Crew go by manifest. Pissed off passenger is led farther back to normal J. I am speculating but what I think happens in those situations is the seat is somehow booked earlier by Passenger 1, and then changed by airport control to Passenger 2.

I think at HKIA, this situation is far less likely to happen.

mlxgzzz

I can't attach the screenshoot of my chat with CX Messenger staff and my BP since I don't have >5 posts on FT yet. On another forum I saw MPC Gold said that these F seats are open to GO and DM members online in Manage Booking and those seats are reserved exclusively for those high tier members. I'm not confirming on this as I'm not GO. To be honest I was just trying to see if I can select one of them and surprisingly it works for me. I do believe that I would be moved to J seat if a DM wanted 1A, but fortunately I was able to fly 1A on that specific day. It was a relief for me after a 16 hour flight with a bad cold.

ernestnywang

Well, my advise would be, do OLCI when it is T-48, print the boarding pass or save it as pdf or on your phone, and then at the airport, make sure they give you a boarding pass with the right seat. If they don't, you have the electronic boarding pass to argue with them. If you don't have checked bag, maybe you can bypass the counter, but if you got swapped out, they would probably stop you at the gate and assign you a new seat. At that point, it may be more difficult to argue with them.