I know WP's and SG's have a relatively easy time getting a QP Lounge dragon or check in agent to block seats next to them, but I had one today in MEL outright lie to me.

I was checking in for a MEL-ADL flight and a friend was joining me on the same flight from a connection. At the QP I asked if I could block a middle seat giving us the entire row (on a 734) to which they replied 'no we cannot block seats'. I asked if the flight was full to which he replied "yes totally". I checked on qf.com and I can buy an N class fare still for $134.

Have I just caught one of the dragons in bread-toasting mode or as a PS are they always like this? I've usually had pretty good success with requesting seats to be blocked. If the flight isn't full they'll happily oblige with the tag line that they cannot assure me it will remain blocked if the flight fills up for any reason which seems fair to me.

Can anyone offer an oppinion, or is this the voodoo of QF seating

Drew

Seems like the agent was in 'bread-toasting mode'.

How busy were they?

PS's can get seats blocked??? Must try this on my trip to UK. Seat empty next to me would be VERY nice...(an op-up would be nicer but the pigs arent flying yet).

I have a hard time to get any seat blocked next to me everytime I travel!
And when I do get offered it, its like Mr Wong, we can block seat next to you on row 50 something...

I take the seat block regardless of the row, especially if it means I can get 3 or 4 seats blocked on a SYD-LAX flight.

Back to the OP. When you got on the flight was it full? Often I have seen seats on QF.com for my flight, yet the lounge staff tell me its full. For what ever reason, the flight has always been full.

Most recently I am grateful for QF just getting my seat request correct. I am doing SYD-SFO in two weeks and have row 50 on a 2 class 747 and 51 on a 3 class Pac config 747 for the return, travelling on a B class ticket. That would be the furthest forward they could get me. Domestically these days I am lucky to get anything further forward than the first 8 rows of economy.

Smile sweetly, take out pen and paper, write their name, date, time, flight number down so they can see you doing it. Wish them a plesant day and be as nice as you possibly can about it - true playah style.

They'll be ....ting their pants for the rest of the day and perhaps even help out the next person that asks.

Their system does however prevent low-level dragons from accessing certain particulars. So if blocking a seat for a SILVER flyer on a non-revenue ticket is one of them - then they are probably not jerking you around ... of course...I'm only guessing

Seat blocking for UA 1Ps and above is a standard entitlement (in the Y+ cabin) - even on the cheapest fare. It only doesn't work, however, if the plane is full.

Jesus! Og is channeling ozstamps!

Yes, I was going to make the same comment. I enjoyed that benefit for many years when I used to fly UA with some frequency. It seems that QF do not hand out unsolicited seat-blocks.

On the other hand, U.S. and Australian airlines have opposite attitudes to seat-switching. U.S. airlines generally turn a blind eye if you unilaterally change your seat before take-off, whereas Australian airlines (Qantas, and also Ansett when they were around) generally react with shock and paranoia to that practice, throwing in a lecture about weight distribution algorithms. I remember once I took the wrong seat on an Ansett flight. When I realized my mistake a minute or so later I got up to move to the correct seat. Well, she was on top of me in a nanosecond, telling me that I had to remain in my assigned seat till after take-off! I don't understand why so many Australian FAs seem to think that the cabin is their little school room, but I guess it's because they've either been trained to think that way or they've not been trained not to.

Ironically, because of the laissez-faire attitude on U.S. airlines, even a blocked seat may not remain blocked. This happened to me once, where I was given an exit seat where there are only two seats (with a vacant space next to the door), and another guy just walked up from his assigned seat and took the seat next to me! When I queried this with a FA, she just shrugged it off.

Come to think of it, why do Australian airlines make a big deal about showing them your boarding pass as you enter the aircraft, and then telling you your seat is x rows down on the right or left? Once you've been through the boarding formality at the gate, why is a further check needed? And even if there is some reason for doing it, why do they cloak it with that silly practice of telling you the coordinates of your seat?

Quite a lot of PAX out there are quite clueless when it comes to boarding aircraft. I suspect that has a lot to do with it. Remember not everyone is an FTer and knows the intimate details of airline operations.

On a twin aisle, it speeds boarding by getting the passenger on the correct side. All sorts of chaos would erupt if people were switching aisles! BUT, on a single aisle, it only speeds it up by saving the clueless passenger from gazing at seat numbers when all they really need to know is to head to the cattle pen down the very back.

It's all part of that great free market that we are all embracing. If someone doesn't deliver, keep trying the competition until you get what you want (or something like that anyway). In any case, changing ANC-SFO-SYD bookings (with confirmed upgrades) to flights a week earlier (on the day before departure) AND still getting confirmed upgrades for the new flights is a pretty good way of flying. Just try doing that on QF!

Several reasons. Firstly it is a double check to ensure nobody has slipped through the gate control unchecked. It does and has happened. If someone accidently slipped past the gate check and ended up on the wrong aircraft, everyone would be screaming about why there was no check again at the aircraft door!

Secondly, they are checking that people are using the right boarding pass to find their seat on this flight. This can be a problem when people have connections and are holding multiple boarding passes for different flights. Its very easy for them to look at the wrong boarding pass and head for the wrong seat and then the FA has to sort it out later.

And lastly, not everyone knows where their seat is located. For example, on a A330 or 767, someone holding a boarding pass for row 23 may not realise that is actually the first row of the economy cabin and walk straight past the row thinking that row 23 must be down the back somewhere. Then having to push their way back through the crowd slows things down. Also many non-frequent flyers may not know that ABC is on the right and DEF is on the left as they walk down the aisle.

Personally I like the personal touch it provides, and some FAs at the door actually note the FF status and welcome me by name. This is particularly the case on longhaul international flights and its a nice touch.

How many clueless are there these days, especially on flights populated largely by business travellers? In any case, I can't imagine anyone taking their seat without checking the seat number overhead, or perhaps asking someone already seated. And how easy is it to count when you are reduced to testudinal progress down a clogged-up aisle?

On wide-bodied aircraft there is some point, I agree, but on single-aisle aircraft it just seems an unnecessary and somewhat annoying formality.

In theory everything you say is reasonable but one has to wonder how airlines in some other parts of the world manage without doing this. It seems overkill to subject every passenger to such rigmarole when perhaps one in 10**n actually needs this level of mollycoddling. The "double check" thing seems questionable. There's a very low probability that someone would find that his assigned seat was actually unassigned on another flight that he wrongly boarded, and they do make announcements of destination and flight number during boarding, before the door has closed. In any case, the gate procedure is evidently intended to be a secure boarding check, though of course no security checks are infallible.

I grant the issues with multiple aisles, discontinuous seat numbering, and occasional aviation tyros. My main beef is with domestic flights on narrow-body aircraft. I just find the procedure irritating. And if they insist on seeing your boarding pass, then surely they can read your elite designation and make an informed assessment that you know how to get to your seat!

And please, please don't call me "Sir"! I don't need and don't want that level of formality. Just be your Aussie selves, don't try to adopt an unnatural level of courtesy that bespeaks remoteness and artificiality.

Having said all that, I do appreciate being addressed by name occasionally (but not "Sir").