G-man82

Hi everyone. I was told to re-direct here. I'm wondering about one of the oneworld benefits: pre-reserved preferential seating:

(http://www.oneworld.com/ow/ffp/oneworld-status)

It seems like it's different across the various carriers. In fact, when I searched the OW site, there is an * for "in accordance with the individual oneworld carrier's policy" or something like that. Usually, in OW I fly CX as my main carrier, and since I'm based in the US, I use AA within and for flights to Europe (for mileage-earning reasons, or else I'd use BA). With CX, I've heard from many people in our CX forums that CX does not discriminate between Marco Polo members and OW when it comes to seating. My experience with AA is that I have to argue for the seat, usually because the AAdvantage agent or reservation agent doesn't know that oneworld exists (or my favorite: when I say I have a Cathay Pacific number, they reply, "what's that?"). I've even been told that the benefit belongs to AAdvantage elites only by one agent, and then since I wasn't satisfied, called again and got my request through. FT 101: If you don't like an answer, call again. Yup, a hard and fast rule. I've heard with BA they're even stricter, though I have no experience to back that up.

Like almost all other elites, in Y I prefer to be up front and either in a window or an aisle. Oneworld says yes. But it seems like individual carriers try to get around oneworld even if there is no real policy (e.g. AA). So my question is, what are the pre-reserved preferential seating policies across the individual carriers so that I (and others with this question) know what to expect?

Viajero

AA reserves the exit row seats for elites, but the rest is free for assignment to all. Personally I see nothing wrong with that.

LAN reserves the exit row seats for assignment at check-in time, regardless of status. I don't see anything wrong with that either.

QF allows preassignment and then takes your seat away at the airport without asking (they just hand you a new BP and that's that). I like it when it benefits me.

IB seat preassignment, if you are not an IB elite on a IB booking, is dreadful; they give it to you today and delete it tomorrow, particularly on awards. I think it stinks.

I don't see the airlines as trying to get around anything. They are free to implement their own rules, so they do. I'm ok with that.
 

Keith009

BA allows seat assignments if you're at least OW sapphire. If you aren't, you'd have to wait till OLCI opens to select your seat.

thadocta

As long as the airline is consistent, I don't care - so if BA treat a BA OWE the same as a CX OWE or a QF OWE, or if AA treats a JL OWS the same as a JL OWS or a QF OWS, then no problems, as far as the oneworld rules go.

It is when the airline treats their own elites better than other members eiltes, that there is a danger of falling afoul of the OW rules.

I think that QF "sort of" does this, by restricting pre-allocation of exit rows to QF OWE members only. All other non-QF OWE passengers can not pre-allocate exit row seats.

There *might* be some rationale for this though, in that QF knows if someone is not suitable for an exit row seat (I know the stuff they record in a profile, I used to work for QF), and will not pre-allocate an exit row seat if a QF OWE is unsuitable. They do not have this information with other airlines OWE members, and therefore will not pre-allocate.

But, as I said, as long as an airline treats other airlines elites the same as they treat their own elites at the same level, then they are complying with OW rules.

Dave

Cheetah_SA

This would make a great sticky! A matrix of what your seating possibilities are when:
- you belong to FF program X
- you're travelling on the metal of carrier Y
- in class Z

There's already some valuable information here. Who feels up to collating it?

Viajero

I am quite happy with the idea of an airline treating its own elites better than other elites of the same level. The rules for earning and keeping status are different for each airline so why shouldn't the benefits be different as well?

G-man82

I agree with you, and I'm pretty sure all the oneworld carriers do so. For instance, I'll use CX as an example, since they're my main carrier. As a CX Silver member (OW Ruby), I was allowed Business Class lounge access on all CX flights. Someone who is AA Gold (OW Ruby) travelling on CX would not be allowed that benefit because OW rules state you need to be at least Sapphire for that benefit. Now, an AA Platinum or BA Silver member (both OW Sapphire) would be allowed lounge access because their tier status within OW grants them that privilege.

So what I'm saying is if OW rules state pre-reserved preferential seating (and this is for all 3 elite tiers), then it should NOT be different across the carriers. The OW benefits should be the exact same across all carriers, because isn't that one of the major reasons for an alliance from a passenger perspective? I feel there's a bit too much room to interpret in this particular benefit and that "preferential" needs to be defined further and then standardized across the alliance.

cxfan1960

My feeling is that people at the same tier level from different programmes are treated the same, except that there is more effort required by the passengers, e.g., entering the FF#s, staff not trained to understand partners' FF programmes, etc.

As long as they are treated partners' FFs in accordance to OW rules, it should be OK if the individual airlines give benefits to their own FFs above and beyond what stated in the OW rules.

serfty

Not exactly true, AA reserves the exit rows and other defined premium seats for its elites.

You can see this by making and holding a Coach booking on AA.com without logging on or entering a FF number, then go to seat selection. Compare the selections offerred with an Expert Flyer/KVS seat map for the same flight and you should see what I mean.

e.g. for an S80 AA reserve for their elites seats A, B, D & F in rows 9, 10 and 11, seats B & D in row 12 as well as the exit seats.

I have recently booked a couple of LONE4's and I am sure my QF WP number is correctly entered along with status for the entire booking as I can select seats on the BA flights using ba.com's Manage My Booking. However, I only have online access to set preallocation as for any other non elite flying AA. (I was thinking of calling up to request, but it's too hard with IndiAA, I intend to upgrade with AAdvantage points, so it's not an issue.).