ff_flyer

And now there is a mismatch on webpage between the seats shown on reservation details and the actual seatmap. We are a group of four traveling to sunny south and 22A assigned to missus but on seatmap it's shown as free. The whole crowd have shifted 2 seats to the right, 2 across the aisle to DEF side. Reservation details not changed and eq. MyFlights is not showing any changes since 17 July, ac still the same A321.

It's apparently just the seatmap gone nuts and not a big deal as long as the exit seats will stay but I am gradually losing any confidence to even very simple features. No good!

heatsink

I'm flying business class on an Aurinkomatkat trip in about six months. They specifically advertise that seats are selectable 185 days before the trip, and in economy will charge extra for it.

In practice, however, this is not the case. Why? Because all the seats seem to be assigned to Aurinkomatkat itself. Finnair says that almost every seat seems to be booked. Aurinkomatkat says that Finnair's system assigns seats.

The only way to actually choose seats seems to be to hope that the flight isn't sold out at the 185 day mark. Otherwise you're stuck in your randomly assigned seat, when all customers are transferred into Finnair's database simultaneously.

I'm fairly confident that I'm not simply dead last in choosing seats, because I hadn't even received my booking reference yet. The only reason I have it is that I contacted Aurinkomatkat customer support. Apparently they were generated at the 185 day mark, but "haven't been sent out yet". Great way to confuse customers!

On one flight we managed to choose window seats, but not next to each other. On the other flight, we only managed to get middle seats. Even though some may feel this is trivial, I am not happy about this at all. Especially since my seating preference is set to "window" and I find it hard to believe that there are 14 other people with Platinum status on this flight. Most of them probably don't even care, but will also never move themselves anywhere else.

P.S. bonus w-t-f! Finnair's website actually has a function that would have let me sign in using the Aurinkomatkat confirmation code instead, but it doesn't work.

intuition

This sounds exactly like the issue we have been experience on multiple Finnair bookings, mostly at T-36 ie in the first seconds of free seat selection. There is just no seat left to chose from.
Just like you say, it is impossible that 100% of all travellers suddenly decided to pay for seat selection and did so at time of booking.

When asking CS they are not aware of this issue and only repeats what they can read on their intranet. I suspect there has been a change somewhere in finnair production system, so that all tickets are automatically assigned a seat at time of booking. These assignments are probably not meant to show up on seat maps, but they do and block all other attempts to make ASR.

I have also tried to go around CS and ask through other channels, but Finnair HQ won't even respond to their own staff what has happened to the seat reservation system.

ff_flyer

There is something obscure with these Aurinkomatkat and AY reservations and seats. I could not reserve an exit seat notwithstanding my status, had to call CS but they couldn' fix that on the phone either. Eventually got an email a day after my call, that the issue was solved and seats assigned by them. Have seen a similar case as above when nearly all seats on the seatmap have been 'sold out' or unavailabe months before the day of departure. And as heatsink already mentioned above I do not believe all J-class seats have been reserved half a year ahead. If proven wrong for some reason the beer is on me!
Keep on calling CS politely every week until someone will take action.

WilcoRoger

But more importantly - did you get the u/g vouchers?

heatsink

Haha, that would've been cool. Unfortunately, the error was only in the email, so my status wasn't reset twice. It's almost like the info was taken from a backup by accident, because the points were wrong too.

heatsink

Got some more info from Finnair regarding my Aurinkomatkat reservation. They say that the reason almost all seats are taken is that there are so many people with regular tickets, and they have obviously been able to select seats at the time of booking (J).

It sounds a bit odd that the flight would already be so full, but it's a reasonable explanation. What I'll do now is complain to Aurinkomatkat about how they can't advertise free seat selection if the flight is likely to be full once they actually let you do anything...

ff_flyer

I still doubt that explanation until you have booked a HKT, BKK or similar right at the start or end of February spring break (= "hiihtoloma" for the Finns).
And still very hard to believe that close to 45 J seats sold already 6 months ahead. Possible yes, but unlikely, IMVHO.

heatsink

I think hiihtoloma in some areas of the country does coincide, but despite that I know that demand is lower during these weeks because the prices are lower.

It is in fact HKT at the end of February. Coming back in March. Good guess

ff_flyer

Just crossed my mind, that they are propably operating with 32J configuration on those leisurely flights with reduced J service.
Significantly less seats and weekend departures (Fri,Sat) tend to be popular due to hiihtoloma timing and it is possible that passenger load is high on some dates.

heatsink

Yeah, it is 32J. However, it's still kinda suspicious that there would be so many people with regular tickets on the flight. I would have expected most to be from Aurinkomatkat.

Regardless of the true reason, I've now written Aurinkomatkat about how I don't appreciate being made to wait until 185 days before the flight and then seeing a full seatmap. Let's see how quickly they respond.

ff_flyer

Well, keep us posted since this may have more interest if there is this pitfall with seat selection when booking via Aurinkomatkat.
Good luck anyway.

Aviating

Today I did purchase a ticket for this month for HEL-ORD-HEL. For obvious reasons I did choose the AA codeshare on HEL-ORD, but the original AY for ORD-HEL as I intended to upgrade the ORD-HEL to J.

The result was 2 PNR's one for AA and one for AY (hereafter AYPNR1). For the outbound leg I was not able to select the seat, but I could select the seat for the inbound leg. This was surprising as both legs showed up in MMB under the AYPNR1.

The upgrade tool showed F availability, but refused to process the upgrade. I suspect that the reason was that the ticket was issued by AA.

I did call the FP line and indeed they were able to process the upgrade, but as usual they were not able to issue it to the ticket as it was ticketed by AA. This is normal, the upgrade will be confirmed in MMB, but instead of issuing a new ticket the upgrade will be processed in in the CI system. The question is, why was I not able to select the upgrade in the upgrade tool?

Back to the seat selection. The surprising thing was that I could not select the outbound seat even though the flight is visible in MMB. The FP line agent said that she can't see any free seats on the AY9 (plenty available according to EXPF) and can't assign me a seat. I know that if I have a AA ticket with flight(s) operated by AY but no AY reservation the flight is not showing up in MMB. But if I call CS they can based on the AAPNR look up a shadow AYPNR and associate that somehow to the FFP#. Then it shows magically up in MMB. I did suggest this to the CS agent and she reluctantly said she could try. And voila! Magically she could now select the seat for the outbound flight and I can now see the outbound flight under AYPNR2. I can even change seats normally.

The learning is that if you have problems with selecting seats with a AA issued ticket, call CS and ask for the shadow AYPNR even though the flight is visible in MMB.

---
BTW now it starts after the summer to feel more normal with 4 LH flights and 3 SH flights booked within the next two months with the about the same amount expected to be added by the end of the year.

Aviating

Maybe the problem I experienced above applies as well to some of the problems reported with the Aurinkomatkat reservations. You should check if there is a shadow AYPNR.

Courmisch

In me experience, the shadow PNR always shows up automatically when AA (or QF) code-shares are involved. I guess the booking system automatically imports the FF#. So you don't need to ask somebody to look it up, just log-in.