SEA-ICN-DPS on DL & Garuda Indonesia
 

Hi all, I've got a September 30th flight to DPS via ICN, with a return flight to SEA on October 11th. Both ICN-DPS and DPS-ICN will be flown on Garuda Indonesia, as part of the same itinerary. The DL segments are SEA-ICN and vice versa and will be in Premium Select, whereas the GA flights are in economy. This will be my first trip on GA and I've heard good things in general about them, particularly service-wise. However, as seems to be typical with some DL partner flights, seat selection has turned into a bit of a cluster. I booked this trip via the Delta PM phone line and the agent told me I'd need to call GA or use their website and booking code to select my seats, as Delta has no access to seat inventory. I was unable to do this via the Garuda website, which continues to give me an error message.

I emailed the Garuda support address and they insist that, as Delta is the booking carrier, I can only complete this process through Delta, thus leaving me in an extremely annoying limbo. The flights to and from DPS are 7 hours in length and are in economy, so I'm not particularly willing to just let it ride and hope that I don't get stuck in a middle seat for those legs. Adding further complication is the fact that, despite the Garuda website error message, I am seeing the seats that I ATTEMPTED to select now in my DL trip info. I will place another call to the Platinum line tomorrow to attempt to resolve the situation but figured I'd try to get some additional info/data points first.

Has anyone else had this issue with GA? I know selecting seats on partner flights seems to be a common issue but I couldn't find many occurrences of this happening on Garuda, presumably since they're not one of the more popular/frequently flown Skyteam members.

Any anecdotal experience or advice would be appreciated!

Bummer - I’ve had good luck with the Garuda web site for seat selection. Reading between the lines, sounds like you were able to log in and see your reservation, but the seats don’t stick when you save them, right?

This is going to sound insane, but try using the Saudia web site to select seats; pull up your reservation by ticket number there or use the record locator displayed on the GA site. It’s a long shot, but I’ve occasionally had good luck with it (more for viewing stubborn reservations, though - Garuda is usually my go to for seat assignments unfortunately!)

Have you used the Saudia site for selecting seats when it was a ticket purchased through Delta, though? Either way, thanks for the suggestion!

If DL shows the seats assigned then you are in them. DL gets the seat assignment from GA system.

Does DL app/website give a seatmap? If so then you can change via it . Starting about a year ago DL became able to do seat assignments on partners. Not all agents are aware of this. The partner can reject the seat assignment. If this happens DL will revert to unassigned or show the seat the partner placed you in.

I was able to get seat assignments through GA's website when I flew HKG-DPS-SYD last year. I don't remember exactly how I did it, but if you click around their site, there is a way to do it. Sorry, I can't be more helpful.

Have fun in Bali. The food is awesome.

I flew SYD-DPS-NRT on a SkyMiles award four years ago. I was only able to select seats by calling GA. Things obviously may have changed since then.

Negative, the DL system shows no seat map and simply gives the generic "you are unable to select seats for this flight". But as you alluded to in the first sentence, my trip details do show my and my girlfriend's seat number, 40H and 40K. I just can't view those seats on a map with DL.

You don't need to see a map. As long as your DL.com reservation is showing seat assignments for the Garuda flights then those are the seats you have. Seeing them on a map means nothing.

-RM

OP, have you called Garuda directly to get seat assignments? If not, that might be the solution here.

I thought Indonesia had a 14 day quarantine requirements for visitors from the US?

Is OP using record locater assigned by Delta or did OP get the Garuda record locator from Delta and is still having problems on Garuda website? Unclear to me.

i had a similar issue albeit Star Alliance. Once i got respective locator, i could switch seats via other carrier's websites....YMMV.

Some DL partners (at least in the past as I haven't flown AF/KLM/KE recently) refused to assign seats before T-90 days, although you could usually request specific seats or a seat type through DL. OP should try again in a couple days for a September 30th departure.

This isn't necessarily accurate - Delta's booking system is different from the one used by other SkyTeam airlines, and can show a shadow seat assignment that doesn't match what the real operating airline shows. Unless your seat assignments show on the Garuda web site, they likely didn't "stick".

If Delta assigns you seats, then you change them via the other airline, you frequently will see the wrong seat assignment on Delta.com right up until departure.

Usually, Garuda's web site is the one I use to get around all of this, though, so it's weird OP is having trouble. It's probably going to require a call to Garuda to resolve.

My usual approach is:

• Go to https://booking.garuda-indonesia.com....action#/TLIST
• Enter my ticket number to look up the reservation (006 goes into the first field, the rest goes into the second)
• Under Services, click Additional Services
• Click Seat
• Choose your new seat(s)
• Click Confirm and Close
• Click Continue to finish
• Note the confirmation number on the Garuda site (it's usually different than the Delta one)
• Go to saudia.com / Manage Bookings
• Enter in the Garuda confirmation number as "booking reference"
• Expand "Passengers Information"
• Note the seat assignment listed in the field should match what you picked on the Garuda site

Looks like the seat selection interface isn't available on Saudia right now for the one Delta-purchased ticket I have open, but it does show me the seat assignments so I can confirm they were made correctly. So if you use the Garuda site to assign seats, you can then use the Saudia site to see if they "stuck".

Another clue is if you go back into the Garuda seat map and the seat you just picked is now marked as occupied.

I’m gonna file this thread in the “wishful thinking” category. OP, your biggest worry about this trip ain’t choosing seats!