Booked a flight a while back with a friend, LAX-DTW-FRA, DUS-FRA-LAX departing Dec 1. (Coach, cheap fare)

Well, when the DUS flight was canceled, I called and got us rebooked on the KLM AMS-LAX flight (we actually were going to be in AMS and catching an early morning train to DUS so it worked out fine)

When 90 days before the flight rolled around I got us seats on the NW flights. Of course, they couldn't give us seats on the KLM flight, they had to be "requested."

I am subject to the occasional senior moments, but I am pretty sure the assigning of seats came well after the change of flight.

Anyway, didn't think about until Monday when I thought I'd check how the seat map was looking and low and behold, I had a new PNR and my friend was not listed. My seats were the same, but when I called up his rez with original PNR and last name:

He had no seats at all!

Of course the LAX-DTW leg is booked solid. He has no seat at all there. Hopefully he'll get one after EUA runs, but I have lost my rare chance to use my Plat Companion Upgrade perk and who knows where he'll be seated.

DTW-FRA the Elite agent did the right thing and put him back in a "P" seat.

AMS-LAX he was not able to do anything, so my friend is way in the back with the last window seat. I was on hold, but in my mind's ear I could here the "That is not possible" from the KLM desk.

Usually I'm more on top of things, checking reservations and seats frequently. But this whole merger thing has me just down on the whole business (as the wise man said, "This game isn't as fun as it used to be").

I assume what happened is when the PNR was split (for whatever reason), the software noticed that my friend (who has no status) was now assigned seats to which he was not entitled (having no status) and deleted them from his record. I would have thought that he would have been assigned new seats, but I guess not.

Nothing to do, I realize. I can't even really ..... about the software because I assume it will be going away with the merger as well. So the moral is, what those reservations closely.

Last month I also crossed 1M BIS miles and to date have not received an email or even a form letter

Does Greyhound have a frequent traveler program? How about Continental Trailways? That's about how I feel these days.

Bummer on the situation. But from reading the boards it appears that most of NW's IT systems are staying.

I think your guess about your friend losing seat assignments is correct (re: split PNR and he has no status). Possibly the seats couldn't be re-assigned because the non-P seats were full at the time - just a guess.

Hopefully things get sorted out.

-RM