TA

What is it with European airlines and no seat assignments in advance? I've experienced this on nearly every intra-european flight I've taken.

If you even call the UK UA reservations line, it has a specific message telling callers that seats will be assigned on the day of departure. Why? Then I just call home in the US and get it done.

This works (although not well) if *everyone* waits until the day of departure, and are processed in a specific order, but not if some countries' offices let you get seats and others don't!

silliness.

lucky9876coins

Wait a second... are you talking about calling UA UK reservations about a UA seat assignment, or the "other European airlines" that you reference? If it is for UA, you really can't get a seat assignment? That would be strange.

TA

I'm saying that any european airline that I've taken, and recently also calling United UK reservations phone number (I work in UK partly now), they say (or the recording says) that seat assignments are given on the day of travel.

So I just call back to the USA UA reservations number to get it done. (I haven't tried requesting the seats on the UK phone line anyway, given the recorded message -- also, the UK number doesn't ask for your MP number, so I get routed to India).

mahasamatman

In most cases, you should be able to get your seats online, too.

Daydream

There was a second thread about this recently and I simply dont get it.

Since 1998 I had been buying my own flights, and up until three years ago all of them originated in Europe, quite a few were with an intra-european segment. And for every single one I was able to get my seating assignment, on KLM, Delta, LH, UA, LTU, LHs Privatair flight. Only problem I ever encountered was getting a seat assigned with UAs German office or British Office for my Great Lakes flights. They basically entered what I wanted and a day later I could check online what seat I gotten. And this was the same if I booked using a travel agent or if I bought the ticket on phone or internet.

I simply cannot say that I find it annoying or difficult to get my seat assigned.

AdamUK

Not speaking for the European airlines, but if you are calling the 08457 UK number, IGNORE the message about the seats will be assigned on day of departure. You will get through to India obviously, but they will assign seats to you or make changes. I have done it many times with no problems except once when I was told the flight was under airport control (3 months out ) but I called back and got someone else to do it. The message you hear on the phone (until recently) was an Irish voice (remember the days of Irish call centres *sigh*, and now it is an english male, but still the point they make is probably just to put people off staying online to speak to the helpful ICC !

flyerLPA

every ticket that I buy, at least with IB, has a seat assigned and 24 hours before travelling I can make changes at their web site.

A lot of european airlines let you handle your own seat assignment and boarding pass

Wembleygal

I've never had a problem getting a seat assignment from the UK number ...