Help with code share with AirFrance
 

My wife and I are traveling to Ireland in July for our 10 year anniversary. We booked our tickets with Delta to fly IAD-CDG-DUB on July 21, 2016. When I look at seat inventory on AirFrance on the upper deck there is plenty of inventory in economy but does not show on Delta. I have tried calling both Delta and AirFrance to try and purchase those seats, but they both state they are unable to seat those seats as available. AirFrance only stated that I can call in at 48 prior to the flight and book them. I am pretty sure at this time all the seats will be taken. Is there anything I can do? My wife would like to be on the upper deck on the side of the plane with a window if at all possible.

The Delta website shows the middle seats on the upper deck (D-G), but does not show the available window ones.
Looking at the Air France website, the window seats seem to cost extra "Upper deck duo seat" $43 per person.

My guess is that Air France is blocking these seats from Delta to get revenue from them (so Delta legitimately can't see them?). And because you have a Delta ticket, Air France has no way to bill the $43 :confused:

Maybe someone else has experience with this, but I was in a similar predicament a few years ago (IAD->CDG flight too!), and the remaining seats on the upper-deck showed up 48-hours or so before check-in, and I was able to select them for free from the Delta seat selector... Of course, they have to be available for this to happen... So, there is always that issue... :(

Have you tried getting your AF confirmation # (a Delta agent can give it to you) and then going into your reservation on the AF website?

Thanks r007, that is exactly what is happening, my concern is we are traveling in peak season so most likely those seats will not be available, I am not sure why AirFrance won't be happy to take my money from me at the moment, they should be able to reassign the seats but I am not 100% completely sure.

CarmenOM - I have got the AirFrance confirmation # and it shows exactly the same seats that Delta does, so no luck there.

Hopefully someone else can chime in and give me some tips.

You need to understand that system wise, DL123 operated by AF456 is not the same as AF456. You're booked on a DL flight, not AF. Therefore you're limited to what DL is selling for their flight. Now since the flight is operated by AF, information is sent over to them, but they have no control to change it. The information is just being fed over to prevent AF from over booking their flight number that actually operates the flight. Just before DoD AF takes control and can make changes.

Thank you for the clarification

I am having this exact same problem! I see the empty seats on the Air France site, but I would like to book and gain skymiles for this flight through delta. What an annoying disconnect!

You can earn DL miles whether the flight is booked with the DL or AF flight number, but the rules for calculating the miles can become complicated when there are codeshares. Sometimes it's beneficial to book using the partner's flight number and sometimes not.

There's no disconnect. They're different flights. With a codeshare think of it like this; they're two different flights, and inventory is separate for each flight. AF can decide what buckets and what price to sell its(AF coded) flight at and DL can decide what price and what buckets to sell its flight(DL coded) at, even though in the end you'll be on the same plane.

Basically DL is selling you a flight they offer that they have no plane to fly it. Thus they send their information over to AF who then flys you on its flight.