weegraeme

My apologies if this is considered inappropriate. I posted this on Australian Frequent Flyer, but I'm aware that not everyone reads both forums.

---

Outside of last minute break downs etc, how long before a flight is an aircraft type locked in?

I booked a reward flight in J on VA469 (PER-BNE) for November. It chose this flight because it was an A330. A while later I got the email where they told me might flight time had changed 10 minutes. As it turned out this was because of an aircraft change. I logged in and selected new seats, because none were allocated automatically. I just logged in to my account to check my booking as my forward journey is happening soon. My booking is now appearing twice and it's again showing as an A330 with my 2 seats allocated as 5A and 5D. I'm travelling with my mum, and it would be preferrable to sit with her, but it probably doesn't matter a whole lot. My only concern is that if they swap it back to a 737 again, 5A and 5D aren't in business class at all. For some reason it's also showing that I have 2 bookings on the same flight. Both are showing as VA469 but they're showing as Flight 1 and Flight 2.

I know that that's a long way away, but this flight and the forward journey are actually positioning flights for overseas travel with another airline (with a very long stopover between them)

markis10

Aircraft change can happen at any time, especially with a small fleet of A330, my A320 turned into a B777 thanks to the fuel shortage at AKL with Air NZ with less than 24 hours notice.

weegraeme

Thanks. I started a dummy booking today and it looks as though the aircraft has been swapped back to an A330. I don't so much care which seat I have as it's a daytime flight anyway. I just want to make sure it doesn't get completely mucked up. I'm only concerned because it's showing 2 bookings for the same flight and showing one of them as being "flown" even though it's not until November this year. It was only showing as a single booking when it was first booked and still as a single booking after they swapped the aircraft from A330 to a 737.

Does it sound like something I should chase up? Or should I just wait. I won't be back in the country until approx 18 hours before that flight, so there won't be much time to fix anything.

markis10

They probably have not allocated aircraft for the extra HKG flights yet, chase up would be a waste of time until closer to your date of flight.