Is aircanada.com up or down today 16 October? Just spins and spins.

Works for me.

Down this morning for me. Cowtool reflects that as well.

Anyone having issues with searching for flights with points? Every time no matter what day it says no flights available. I tried the app, it said error. Also got someone else to try and they had similar issues.

From the top of the search page...
We’re currently experiencing a technical issue and Aeroplan flight rewards are temporarily unavailable. You can still book with points via the Aeroplan Contact Centre. We are working hard to resolve this issue and apologize for this inconvenience.

Ron.

Searching by Points fails. Almost 10 hours ago I was able to do an Aeroplan redemption using what appeared to be a new user interface, including a filter for connecting cities and another filter the details of which I forget, along with the "DIsplay Options". Now, it appears to just be returning no flights.

I'm flying with my 3yo daughter on Thursday YYZ-DEN, this is a 220. Booked as a UA codeshare number, operated by AC (I'm connecting to UA). I had requested seat assignments so we could be sure we would sit together, and we were assigned seats 17AC. Last time I checked, a couple - a few days ago, we were still in those seats. Today, I checked the reservation, and we were moved all the way back to 36DE - this despite the fact that there are several empty seats forward of the exit row (including the seats we used to have), as well as every seat in every row from 26 back. Is this normal?

I tried to change seats myself online, and am being given an error. Seats are also showing at a cost, which I understand is not supposed to happen with a young child, but also, even if I want to pay, I can't, since it errs out when I try.

I did send a twitter DM to see if they could sort this out (they have with seating issues in the past), and on the good side, they replied in like 10 minutes. Unfortunately their response doesn't make any sense. They told me that passengers traveling with children are seated in selected rows for 'operational reasons'. Then in the next sentence, they said I can change by paying (my take: Children can only sit in certain rows because, well, 'operational', unless you pay us more, in which case, 'operational' concerns don't matter). To be clear, I apparently cannot change by paying either, since the website errs out.

Any thoughts on how to deal with this (preferable, without waiting multiple hours for AC to answer the phone), and if there is any actual restrictions where kids have to sit in the back.

Update: Twitter still insisting that ‘operations’ are why kids must be assigned in back, basically, because it screws up back to front boarding, then proceeding to send a link of zone boarding disproving point because it correctly shows business and credit card holding pax, both presumably not sitting in the back rows, boarding before families. Decided to call, waited 45 minutes (only because it was after midnight) for an agent to tell me it’s because I was assigned the seats for free (which also does not explain why it needs to be worst seats on the plane instead of the multiple rows ahead of this that are empty), then told me if I wanted to select before online checkin to select and pay for online - which again, I can’t because the website is erring out.

I suspect this is the reason. From the airline's perspective you aren't willing to pay for seat selection but they have decided that the ill-will and bad publicity generated when parents and kids are separated isn't worth it, so they will assign you seats for free. That doesn't mean they need to give you free reign to choose the seats you want. They are fulfilling their obligation of seating you together - period. If you want your choice of seats, they want you to pay for it. Not sure I can blame them.

At T-24 hours do OLCI and there's a good chance you will be able to get a pair of seats further forward.

(yes, the message is there twice)

I called TD, they say everything is fine, and they're not seeing any transaction attempts from AC.

AC hold time is atrocious.

I don't expect the website to be smarter than C3PO, but for gosh sake, anything more than a vanilla search seems to throw it off into looney tune territory.

I am trying to price out an itinerary of LAX-YYZ(stop/7days)-LHR-YUL/YYZ-LAX in PY. I can't set a cabin choice per segment, which is an issue because AC stops flying widebodies with PY to LA late next month. So instead of giving me options of LAX-YYZ in coach, and YYZ-LHR in PY, the itinerary that comes back is LAX-IAD-FRA-YYZ in PY, then YYZ-LHR in PY, followed by LHR-YUL in PY, then YUL-CDG-EWR-LAX in PY.

Don't even ask me the price, and who in their right mind is going to actually fly that. It should price LAX/Canada segments in coach and the PY eligible segments in N or O.

Do emails sent from the website count?

You should be able to pay for whatever seats you want, and it seems to be a website error that's preventing you from doing so, but it's normal that you would get crappy seats at the back. I think there are a couple of different things going on here:

• You probably shouldn't have gotten 17AC for free in the first place (i.e. yes, normal to get something like 36DE)
• Unclear communication from AC
• Website error not letting you pay for seats

AC offers free seat selection to passengers travelling with children under 14. When you say you "requested" seats and were assigned 17AC, with whom did you make that request? That's not what we would normally expect to see in this situation. When AC's Twitter team told you it was for "operational" reasons, that's somewhat disingenuous. It's really a business decision. People who pay to select seats generally want seats closer to the front of the aircraft. AC wanted to stop the complaints and bad press it got from customers for splitting up families with kids who didn't pay for advance seat selection. (I'm pretty sure we have a thread on that whole change, but didn't turn it up in a couple minutes of Googling, so if someone finds it, let me know...). But they wanted to limit the cost of this measure, so generally assign free seats at or near the back. You mentioned in another thread potentially booking this through Chase, so if Chase or UA somehow assigned you 17AC without charging you, I think it would be pretty normal for AC to move you back to the type of seats that you should have been assigned.

Despite them blaming "operational" reasons for seating you at the back, yes, you should be able to select seats you want, if you pay for them. Why the website won't let you do it, I don't know. I frequently get an error at the confirmation page when selecting seats on bookings made with AC where I don't have to pay for seat selection, but when I do it again, it usually works (although a few times I've had to do it a third time). I know you said you tried a couple of times, but have you tried again? Have you tried both desktop and mobile? Tried a different credit card? Incognito mode? Stupid, I know, but the AC website is full of bugs.

But when you spoke to the agent on the phone, did you ask whether they could do the seat selection and process your payment? They should be able to do that, and if the website doesn't ever end up working for you, you could potentially call again to get it done.

More than... 30 seconds?

Looks like problems are still happening..at least for me. Logged in to make a booking and my points were not there. Then they appeared, but disappear again during checkout. Sigh guess I'll have to call!

I've had a problem happen for the first time recently. I booked a ticket for myself and a companion through my Aeroplan account on the AC website. It ticketed properly with 2 flex fares that I bought but I don't seem to be the primary ticket holder on the PNR/tickets. (Checking the PNR shows my companion has a lower ticket number than I do.) I'm a 50K member and my companion has no status. I am able to apply the benefits such as complementary preferred seat selection for myself but not my companion. I ended up having to contact AC to get them to select the preferred seat for my companion.

I'm not sure if there is a fix for this but I've never had this happen before. I've tried removing and putting back my Aeroplan number into the booking but that didn't fix it. I'm hoping I won't need to contact AC again to make changes and use my benefits for the booking.