status envy
 

I was recently trying to pre-allocate seats for a flight with Qantas in May and encountered some status envy.....as my girlfriend and I will travelling outbound to Australia from London on separate flights, we have separate bookings (we are coming back on the same flight). When I tried to get her a seat next to mine, they couldn't do it and explained to me that certain seats were not available to her as she is bronze where I am silver. It seems even in economy a lowly silver frequent flyer is allowed to sit further forward than a bronze (in the case of the A330-300 I could get the first row of economy 23 whereas my girlfriend could only make it as far as row 28!) Has anyone else had this problem before and does anyone know if there are particular rules about seating allocation based on status?

The rules are fairly basic

There are a number of seats on the aeroplane which are only available for pre-assignment by persons with OW Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald status. being a QF Bronze member she has no access to these

Also, when the normal pre-allocation limit has been reached, a bronze member will be able to get no seat assignment until check in whilst a status member can still get seating.

There is an easy solution; why dont you both select seats in row 28 ( further back) and so can sit together. Alternatively, if on a suitable fare basis get her to do an AA CT Challenge and then she will have status on arriving in the UK so she can select a seat in the same section

Dave

Last year I had a BNE-LAX-SYD-BNE itinerary and my wife (fiancee at the time and a QF Bronze) had a LAX-SYD-BNE-SYD-LAX itinerary.

For the LAX-SYD the Qantas agent put in a link between our itineraries and was able to assign us to 35 HJ.

Also Qantas Club (cf QP NB) get access to these seats.

Example: I booked a flight on QF10 last year for mrs serfty who is a partner QP member but Bronze all the same. She was automatically pre-allocated 36H in the special zone. I was already booked on the same flight with 35H pre-allocated. No problem to move her to 35J.

Im off to SIN with my partner on QF5, who is bronze (Im Gold) After ringing up QF they have allocated us into 26B/C on 2 class 744, with no issues at all.