So we are both Gold, and have booked CDG-ZRH-SIN (Y), so no seat selection allowed(sans payment) ??

Anyone know if this is still the case? Wish I'd read this thread before booking SFO-ZRH today. No seat assignment was really not part of the plan. Coulda flown another *A partner.

Anyone have recent experience with this?

So I was told that you need to use "advanced" check-in. Which is not linked to anywhere easy to find on their site. Also need your ticket numbers.

Even after I got all of this it didn't work as I just got an error message. Calling Swiss is no use. All of their online checkin support worldwide gets routed to a number with a continuous busy message.

Just to follow-up... I had no problem with the advanced check-in, using the 016 eticket number, and had been pre-assigned an aisle in the smaller forward economy cabin. Obviously YMMV, but for me it seems to have worked out really well.

One more -- the SWISS website says online check-in isn't available until -23 hours, but I tried at -24 and it worked then (but it wouldn't check me in for my connecting flight).

So I bought a flexible economy ticket where I fly SAS to ZRH (in their Plus class) and return on LX in Eco (booking class M). I can reserve seats on SAS flight, a benefit on SAS Plus and I am also *G. I was however not able to reserve a seat on Swiss.com without paying money, as per this SWISS Choice.

Since I did not fly LX since last spring, I discovered this thread. What a complete letdown, when flying LX on a 600 Euro eco ticket you cannot reserve a bloody seat.

I know what my Choice will be next time I go to ZRH..

I'm UA 2.5MM (lifetime *Gold) and recently made an award booking in economy FCO-MUC-ATH on LH. I was automatically allocated seats on these LH flights. However I decided to change the flights as I found a more convenient schedule on LX. To my horror I found that I no longer had assigned seats and had to pay at least EUR 10 per sear per segment.

Makes you wonder why LH's little sibling is so much less obliging and whether they should be a full Star Alliance member at all. I'll remember how poor LX is compared with LH the next time I make a booking.

What is "poor" about an airline applying the *alliance rules correctly (and LX did it in your case)? Pre allocation of seats is NOT a *Gold benefit. Some airlines may provide it even in Y, others not.

Well, seeing as Swiss (and SAS for that matter) wants to behave like a LCC, I have decided to cancel my LX flights (fully refundable) and book a real LCC (Vueling) for my trip instead. Saves heaps on the fare and it's also a much shorter, non-stop flight. If I'm going to be treated with disdain, I might as well pay as little for it as possible.

I agree it's up to airlines to decide what services to provide to *Gold members, and I'll take that into account whenever I can. TK, TP and SN amongst others seem to do the right thing, and I'll take note of that when making future bookings.

Finally, the Swiss media have found that ASR simply doesn't work on their "national" ;) airline as passengers would be thinking (you can reserve a seat category, but no seat)

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtscha...story/16688071

Nothing new for anyone on FT I would assume, thought I'll link it in just for the laugh (and for the LX Lurker :D )

I think the worst bit is that if they change your seat you are not entitled to a refund. This is just bad business practise.
"Hey you booked 9C and know you are in 32C - this is the same seat category - therefore no refund due."

Yes in the small print it says blabla blabla - however if they charge money for it and cannot deliver it then they should be forced to refund it. I am not sure their small print would hold in court... as long as there are no consequences they can happily take your money and then not fulfill...
I just don't understand how they can get away with it: This is like you order a meal in a restaurant and then the serve you something else: "Hey the samll print on the menu says that you pay for a certain amount of food - but we are allowed to change if feel like it...

Would someone be kind enough to provide a link to the Advanced Check-In page that's being referenced?

Interestingly I did manage to select seats on a recent UA booking, which has one LX segment (ZRH-LHR) - this segment is coded as an LX flight number, not a codeshare. However after selecting seats I'm now told I can't change seats anymore. (My selected seat propagated through to the UA side of the booking, I can see the seat on the UA website as well as the Swiss website).

I have another ticket, this time with AC, which includes a codeshared LX flight (i.e. AC flight number), I'm guessing I won't be able to select seats on that? (The ticket shows "airport control" for that segment, which is ominous.)

Finally, I need to book a standalone LON-ZRH/GVA flight, if I book a K class flight via the United website, does that mean I'll get free luggage? (They don't seem to have any of the "light" garbage.)

By this do you mean that you booked with UA with a LX flight number and were able to choose seats on LX's website using the LX record locator?

Yes. But to be clear: this was a connecting flight, feeding into a TATL on UA. I didn't have the same luck booking a standalone LX flight via UA (which booked into KLight).

Interestingly the UA record locator also worked on Swiss, and the Swiss website will occasionally show a third record locator that differs from both the UA and LX numbers. (I haven't tested in detail, but the LX locator didn't seem to work for the mobile app, but at that time the LX desktop website was showing my UA locator after having logged in using the LX locator, and using the UA locator seemed to make the app happy.)