Booked Y AMS - DTW in April through UK res. because web site is playing up again. Outward flight on the 14th got 11HJ on the 333 no problem. Asked for same seats on returning 333 on 22nd....nothing up to row 22 available. Confirm I'm PE and system has no.but same answer.

Lateral thinking..Helpdesk can sort it. Answer "Flight is full"

More lateral thinking..make pretend booking on NW website...according to their seatmap only 5 seats occupied in first 21 rows.

Now thinking straight. Phone NW res.Tell agent "I'm KLM PE Can I arrange to have a window seat somewhere between rows 11 and 15." Asked why KLM wont do it. I told her they had told me that section was full. So she says "Yes it is full"

Back to lateral thinking. Phone NW as "ordinary" customer" interested in flying DTW - AMS but wife fancied somewhere between row 10 and row 20. Answer "No problem we have availability from row 10 back"

Nearly worth a ticket to see if it was true.

What's going on and why can't I request a seat in this section?

Exraf

The whole customer service ethos at KLM is non existant, it really begs belief that anyone ever listens to what customers want, let alone actually deliver it. They know they have a loyal band of customers who put up with any old crap service from booking to filing lost baggage reports.

NW constantly makes a mockery of what KLM tell you, it is as if the tail wags the dog.

Wish someone would wake up and smell the air, it stinks.

But Steve, you act like there IS customer services at KLM

KL, where all email to the res center is considered spam. Why put email addresses on the KL website it there's never a response? Reminds me of the similar situation at ABN Bank.

Re.original post. Sorted it! Phoned Worldperks Service. A chatty lady got me 12 HJ...could have had 10HJ but armrests dont move. I asked her how many people actually had seats assigned in first 20 rows...answer 5! She then went on to ask if the seats from SAN - DTW were OK.(14AB) because she could move me to 8AB. KLM res. couldn't access further forward than Row 14 of this A320.

(Aside) On flight out from MME to AMS KL res. offered row 16 on their 06.10 flight. Mentioned I was PE and suddenly 1-8 opened. Arent they supposed to have status info in their booking info?!!!

Live and learn!!

Exraf

I have to say I foresee the end of the Wings Alliance soon, NWA seem to have a habit of locking KLM out of their systems according to the number of times I've rang UK Reservations to do stuff.

All I can say is ensure you get the NWA Locator at the same time as getting the KLM one, then just ring Minneapolis and get them to do it for you...

Unless you got the less than helpful b***h of a NWA supervisor who disagreed with the fare rules on the C class ticket I bought and patronised me and my good lady on the phone while we were in the US... UK Resv kept doing the change, NWA kept un-doing it.

I had to end up calling KLM Amsterdam from over there who read the rules and said "yes, date change can be done, I've done it and changed it with comments in there for NWA to leave it alone"

Always call NW in the USA to get seats allocated for a NW flight! - Never, never get KL to do it - the last time I tried to get the UK res callcentre to get me decent seats on a NW flight, they said they'd have to email Amsterdam (!) to get authorisation......

And do check that NW have the KLM PE number in their system - sometimes it transfers, sometimes it doesn't. The NW res agents seem to be much better trained and to have much more authority than their KL counterparts (who don't appear to be allowed to do anything at all.)

I must say that my experience with KLM UK reservations has always been VERY different. Sure, you occasionally get an inexperienced res agent who does know how to get elite seats on NW metal (they don't seem to show spontaneously on their system unless the agent enters some extra command). However, whenever I have come across such an agent, just get the available seat maps off nwa.com and specify available seats and they'll look into it. And, hey presto, they speak to their supervisors and/or more experienced colleagues, and they'll get the seats for you.
Whereas my experiences with AMS based staff has not been that great, res people at Norwich have always come up trumps.

Got to agree Nick, they're usually stars at NWI.

Yet to come across one of these paragons! Two weeks ago, after problems with OLCI, I called the UK KL res call centre. Was told in all seriousness by an agent that OLCI wasn't available for passengers with checked luggage and that all the information about it on the KLM website was a 'misprint' - I quote.

To be fair to KL wrt my complaint about not receiving an email reply, I received a reply today, 10 days after I send a message using the "webmail" page on the KL site.

I have yet to receive a reply to the message I sent using the [email protected] address.