EVA Air online seat selection - airport control almost two weeks out?
 

My GF and I are headed to HKG on a SEA - TPE - HKG routing in Elite Class during the week of the American Thanksgiving holiday. While we have seats selected, they are unfortunately not next to each other. When I go online to try to select different seats, I get a message saying that I can't select seats until I get to the airport.

Is there any reason why the seat selection is already closed when the first flight is still ten days away?

This may give you some insight:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...signments.html

It's probably because your flight is full and seats that are able to be selected have already been selected so they only do airport assignments now. I would recommend that you arrive early the day of departure.

Just give the reservation center a call, and ask if they can add a preference for you in the booking that you would like to sit together.

Dress up nicely like an business person that day, maybe you'll be selected for an OP UP :D

My sense is that OP UPs are non-existent on BR without Diamond or Gold status.

This is true. Op ups are for Diamond and Gold first before any others. On NA/Europe flights, there is normally enough diamond/gold members to cover the op ups for space.

Anecdotal: I have flown between NA and TPE many dozen times, probably around 50 flight segments. Got an OP UP once (from Deluxe to Premium Laurel). I was Gold at the time.

I just checked into Eva at the airport and asked them if any alternate seats were available. After looking at the computer the agent said no... but if I wanted he could call to see if any were available. I confusingly said sure. After a minute he said there was an alternate seat available. So I took it. Weird that his system didn't show one... but someone on the other line was able to tell him it was available and then his system could give it to me.

Eva Airlines... uh vey.

He probably called the manager. The manager has the ability to view the requests and either follow the request or plain deny it.

I know some airlines have to get approval to release exit row & bulk heads but not sure if special permission is needed for regular seats.

Blocked seats require manager approval on BR. Managers normally allocate prior to departure but sometimes, all types of things come up and they have to switch around the seats, opening up the blocked seats.

Also, once all the seats that can be selected are selected, the reservation system automatically shuts the seat part of the "Mange my Trip" off and the airport is now the one in control.If you call reservations and speak to the right person, they can open up seats for you to assign you.

Thanks for all who responded to my post. I thought I'd come back and post an update for future reference.

I did end up calling BR reservations and explaining my situation but they also saw the same thing I saw, which was that all seats were taken and there was no way to swap. I told them to put a note in my reservation that we would like to be seated together if at all possible, which the agent said she did.

When I went and checked on the reservation with around thirty hours before departure, I was able to access the seat map and saw that were a lot more open seats. Of course, we switched to an arrangement where we are seated next to each other.

I'll check around the same mark prior to the return segments. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Same here. T-a few days out, and they have done so as well.