Enhancements

Seems like MU has started charging for seat assignments?
I just made a booking and seats cost $10-80 per leg.

I do have Skyteam E+ but am unsure if it's of any use here...

mzredhead

If you book reward tickets online on Delta.com are you able to pick your seats?
Will these be the seats you get when you check in or do they change them arbitrarily?
Can you checkin for China Eastern online or must you do that at the airport?

mot29

Any more recent experiences with doing this online? I've tried to use their new US www site and get nothing back when entering 781 ticket number and my name.

exwannabe

I can always pull up my reservation by using the HK/English site. [If you get to the main site, use the drop down for regional sites and HK is the third option. Then select English]

Ticket number + Last/FirstMiddle

But seat selections do not work. I assume this is because they were not booked via the website. So if booked via the web this might work for you.

JohnnyRockets

I think you still need to go to the Chinese site and use Mandarin to do it.

And if you're flying Y don't expect E+ preferred seat you won't. If you call you will have an option of aisle window or middle.
If you fly in J, they will try to bump/force you in the front of the cabin so shenna/who knows can secretly sit in the back of J.

mot29

To respond to my own post. I emailed the NYC customer service address ([email protected]) with the MU PNR, ticket number and my name. Got a response within 10 minutes telling me that seats were assigned -- center aisles in BE.
I wrote back and asked for window seats on the 1-2-1 cabin flights. 10 minutes later I'd been reassigned as requested. Included appropriate rows of the res system entry showing flights, dates, class of service, timing, and seats.
I'm flying JFK-PVG-NRT/HIJ-PVG-JFK so no overnights required in PVG.
Let's hope I get non-smoking pilots.

exwannabe

Thanks. That is the second report of email to NYC working fine. Calling (800-) also works fine.

Still would be nice to have a decent website. Or even an App (assuming both 'droid and I-stuff)

zitsky

I haven't booked a ticket yet but I'm thinking about it. It looks like the English website now has a selection for seat assignment. Can anyone tell me if it actually works?

Next to Member Login is a icon with three horizontal bars. Select that, then choose Manage, then Seat reservation.

ats262

I had no problems selecting seats on their US website back in July. The booking was also made on the US website.

alphaod

My problem is even when I book higher fares (Y/B/E/M) they still want to charge me ¥300 for a seat. Makes no sense to me at all.

Yes I have booked full fare.

B407

I booked via a third party travel website and one of the legs was in the absolute lowest fare class and I was still able to select seats on the website without paying extra. I did however, opt to pay extra for the exit row seating via the China Eastern website.

bsktpdlr

It seems China's best IT folks must not be working for the airlines. Stupid stuff too.

Today our flight from HKT to PVG on Shanghai - couldn't give us boarding passes or assign seats for PVG/LAX even though they were in the same record. So that meant we couldn't use the automated transfer machines since there was no one at the Shanghai customer service desk as we were led to believe there should be. A Long line for one person doing all kinds of things for customers at the transfer service desk right next to the machines.

I had tried to make seat assignment choices and got a message that said our flight was available for check in but seat assignment selection was not available. In other words, you must let big brother do it for you because they know what is best for you. And once you check in, you cannot easily change your seat online. The way I read the instructions I would have to cancel my check in and redo the process, hoping that my desires fell into line with what was deemed best for me by the airline. This can only be done a limited number of times because paying customers may actually want a choice which of course goes against so many things I saw in my first China experiences.

I didn't like the seats we were given by the transfer security desk so at the China Eastern club they had to call and get the seats changed to the 2 aisles i asked for and did they print a new boarding pass? No, they scratched out the old seat and wrote in the new one. She had said we got 2 aisles but when I looked at the seat numbers, they were middle and aisle. So back to the desk to make the change again - scratched out a second time but only after making another phone call.

The seats that originally had fees associated did get filled during the check in period so maybe the airline wants those people to feel like they got an upgrade. I found the whole process very agonizing and frustrating. Empower customers with tools to make things less burdensome for the highly trained (sarcasm) staff. It was clear to me no one does anything more than they absolutely have to. I asked at the club about the cost to purchase an upgrade as we had from HKT. Her response was I needed to go to a check in counter outside security to ask the question.

On the plus side, there was never a wait at any of the Sky Priority lines during my flights with China Eastern and Shanghai - I wondered where everyone was. On the Delta flights perhaps?

Bluestar

Just to echo this advice from last year: I'm flying MU PVG-CDG later this week (KLM ticket, AF codeshare flight number). MU website seems only to allow seat reservation for MU ticket numbers. AF customer service were (predictably?) useless: "not our metal, go talk to MU." I emailed the MU NYC customer service address above and (even though it's not even a sector to/from the US) they replied within an hour with a seat assignment as requested. ^

21A

When using the change seat function on the US site, there is also a box for "Auto Check-in". Anyone have experience with this? How would they deliver the boarding pass? Will it prevent me from changing the seat later, at T-24?

exwannabe

The normal online checkin function has little value even if you did get a semi-BP. At most airports (I never originated at Pudong) they say they are not valid as BPs and you must still go to the window. I would consider using them to clear security and check in at the gate, but the process if so iffy I always end up just going to the window just to be safe.

I would be certain that even if you check the box you can still change your seat, though it might require the phone. Hell, it might require the phone anyway.

The online IT has been improving some,. At least I can now always easily get mys seats selected. But they really need to solve the online BP issue especially as they have issues with check-in window hours at some outstations.