I am flying BOM-AMD on AI.

This is the second segment of my award ticket on UA. The first segment is EWR-BOM.

I tried to select a seat on my short AI flight from BOM-AMD online, but it wouldn't work, so I called AI.

The agent on the phone was able to select a seat for me, but she had to transfer me to a different department for them to collect payment for my seat selection.

The payments department could not take my CC information over the phone. They said they had to email me a link for me to make the payment. Double checked with the agent to make sure she had the correct email address before we hung up. Never got the email.

I called AI back, and this time, I was told that they are unable to generate the email for me to pay for my seat selection because my flight is ticketed by UA, not AI.

They said my seat assignment is safe, and that I can pay for my seat assignment when I get to the airport (presumably BOM). But... won't I get a boarding pass for BOM-AMD when I check in at EWR? I can't imagine the connecting boarding pass will have the right seat assignment if I haven't paid for the seat assignment fee.

Has anyone experienced this? I'm afraid my seat selection will drop off because the payment has not been made.

I experienced this exact same problem on an UA award ticket which had a domestic AI segment. I called AI and they could only assign me a free seat. Any preferred seat that required payment needed a long convoluted process as you describe. After calling several times, they assigned the preferred seat and I managed to pay (the payment option came through email as you say). It seemed that most AI phone agents didn't know how to do this. Do HUCA.

Did you try selecting your seat through AI's manage your booking, or did you use AI's partner Optiontown for buying your seat?

Sometimes, Optiontown works when AI's system doesn't. You can access it through AI's Select Seat page, and click the Optiontown link there. Note that in Optiontown, you can buy a paid seat as well as select a free seat free of cost.

ask ua for your ai pnr & try selecting the seat online on the ai website....

I wouldn't waste my time on this.

- BOM AMD is a short flight as you mention
- You can pick a decent seat at checkin
- in BOM try to get one of the better seats upfront, about 4 h before departure the 'premium' seats are available to anyone for free

Yo. I've tried that. Doesn't work. Ticketed by UA.

Optiontown not working for my reservation either. It says 'not ticketed.'

Yes, I agree it's a short flight, but after all the reviews I've read, I'll try my best to make the short flight as comfortable as possible.

Not sure what reviews you are reading to make you so worried about comfort on a 1 hour flight. You are looking forward to a very decent onboard experience with some free vegetarian food and drinks.

I tried calling a third time and after insisting to be transferred to the payments department, the payment agent said it's not possible because the first segment of my flight is on UA. I'll keep calling but this is pretty sad

This makes me feel better. I'd still like to try selecting my seat in advance, but if worse comes to worst, I'm sure it'll be a nice short flight. I'm a vegetarian, so at least I can count on there being vegetarian food.

Do you have your AI PNR? If not... get it from UA or AI and then go here https://www.optiontown.com/home_page...=SelectProduct. You should be able to do your upgrade from here. AI uses Optiotown in the backend and you can do this directly from them as well... costs etc. remain the same.

It's not unusal for airlines to be unable to associate a seat assignment EMD with a ticket issued on another airline's stock. See for example: No Advance LH Discount Economy seat selection & other seating issues w/ UA Tkts (016)

I've run into this issue a few times on OZ as well.

Yes, I have my AI PNR. That's what I've been using when I speak with AI agents over the phone.

Even though they are able to see my reservation with their PNR, they claim they can't make any changes since the ticket is still issued by UA.

That�s generally true - unless there is strong interoperability between partners (obviously not in this case).

AI won�t get control of the ticket till T-24. However I would still try the Optiontown website.