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Seat Map vs Seats Sold?

 
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Old Mar 20, 2006 | 6:57 am
  #1  
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Seat Map vs Seats Sold?

When are seats sold but not assigned? I'm just looking at 3/24 NRT-JFK UA800 which EF says is Y0..., but looking at the seatmap, it's wide open. In what cases are seats just not assigned to people who book? Seems odd that the vast majority don't have a seat?

On the note of Y0... is this flight oftentimes oversold?
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Old Mar 20, 2006 | 7:15 am
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Originally Posted by rajvar
When are seats sold but not assigned? I'm just looking at 3/24 NRT-JFK UA800 which EF says is Y0..., but looking at the seatmap, it's wide open. In what cases are seats just not assigned to people who book? Seems odd that the vast majority don't have a seat?

On the note of Y0... is this flight oftentimes oversold?
Don't know when this occurs, but it's very common to see a large number of unassigned seats on a sold-out flight. Maybe it's pax who don't bother to do seat assignments through their travel agent (or Orbitz, Expedia, etc.) and they aren't automatically given seat assignments. Since I always pick my seats (carefully, of course! ), I don't know how often you can end up without seat assignments if you skip that step.

As for the Y0, I believe that flight is frequently oversold, as are many transpacs. For example UA800 on 3/26 is F0 C0 Y0. However, I just checked and the 3/24 flight is showing Y5 right now, so it looks like a few seats opened up.
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Old Mar 20, 2006 | 7:37 am
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Cool - do you know if they frequently sell upgrades at the gate? If so... what's the going rate?
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Old Mar 20, 2006 | 7:45 am
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There is almost always no correlation to seats sold vs. seats assigned. In some markets where there are large tour groups, the difference is quite significant.

I would not rely on seat maps as any indication of how full a flight is.
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Old Mar 20, 2006 | 7:46 am
  #5  
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So is the only way to find out (how full it is) to call UA?
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Old Mar 20, 2006 | 7:53 am
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Originally Posted by rajvar
So is the only way to find out (how full it is) to call UA?
Yes. But if a flight is showing Y0, there's no need to call. It's full.
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Old Mar 20, 2006 | 7:55 am
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Originally Posted by mahasamatman
Yes. But if a flight is showing Y0, there's no need to call. It's full.
Or beyond full.
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Old Mar 20, 2006 | 8:12 am
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Originally Posted by rajvar
So is the only way to find out (how full it is) to call UA?
Really, the availability listing is about the best you can do. Sometimes, a reservations agent will give you a little more information, such as how many seats oversold the flight is, but a) I don't think they're supposed to give out that kind of information in general, and b) the number of seats oversold doesn't mean that much anyways unless you know what the typical no-show rate is for that particular flight on that day of the week, etc.

If you take the same flight every Monday, for example, knowing the # of oversold seats may be useful, but in general, it's probably not going to tell you much.
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