International Seat Allocation Ping Pong

[mardy]

I've had a bit of a frustrating experience over the past few months regarding my first international business class flight on Virgin Australia for next Monday.
I put in my seat allocation preference of a window seat back in November 2011 and three times now the seats have been removed from the booking!

The VA staff are always courteous when I call up but they don't appear to have access to any information other than the usual "Operational Considerations" explanation.
As a single traveler my fear is i'm being given low priority due to one of the following:

1. Bookings of two or more seats taking preference.
2. Recent full-price fares taking preference.
3. Broken online international reservations system allowing seats to be re-allocated to newer bookings. (It completely changed my flight due to an error once already, so this isn't as far fetched as it seems)

I'm fully aware the allocation is merely a preference and not confirmed at all, but still it seems odd the flight can go from mostly empty when I booked to no good seats left when I checked this evening!

Anyone with some experience in this matter?

Thanks,

Martin

 

[Boris spatsky]

What status with DJ are you?

 

[mardy]

i'm just a lowly red soon to be silver but they assured me things such as status would not cause my allocation to get bumped. then again they couldnt provide me with an alternate explanation either.

 

[Boris spatsky]

Hmm i would guess it is a status issue but mot sure on international??

 

[rsellens]

Hmm i would guess it is a status issue but mot sure on international??

I am booked J on VA in 3 week and I am travelling alone. My seat allocation had not changed in the past couple of months (last time I could actually access it on the internet). I am Plat so I guess status may come into it.

 

[Boris spatsky]

Mardy, were you allocated a specific seat, or just window preference in your profile? If you just have a preference, it means nothing. If you have a specific seat locked in and it moves, that is a different story.

 

[pauly7]

I'm so glad this popped up and it's not just me!

'fake' DJ platinum here with trip to Europe in July booked with Virgin and EY.

3 times now my seat allocation has
been wiped - not changed just removed.... I then call Virgin who apologise profusely (they do a lot of it I'm guessing) and reassign the Virgin flights but say they cannot do it for the EY flights...

I then have to call EY who do not apologise because they wouldn't know customer service if it hit them in the face - and they reassign the EY flights.... But 2 times out of three they have said its Virgins fault for reissuing the booking?? Virgin claim to have no idea why it is happening.

Completed mystified, not a huge drama but just another of Virgins little annoyances.

 

[mardy]

Hi Boris,

It is a seat allocation showing up on my itinerary (or at least was up until recently).
I call it a "preference" because VA explain that on international flights seats allocations are never a sure thing.

Funnily enough I have received a private message from a rep to investigate further but as I have under 15 posts I can't reply!
Hopefully they see this and can send me an email address to contact or something!

At the end of the day I guess it would be helpful to know the reason for the seat bumping other than "operational considerations" as it could be a glitch rather than a legitimate need.

 

[Boris spatsky]

If you change your booking at all and they re-issue it, it frequently dumps the allocation. Have you changed your connecting flights or even those flights at all? If it is an allocated seat, and you haven't made a change, it seems very weird to me.

 

[mardy]

No i haven't changed anything myself but the booking got messed up on their end a couple of times now each time dropping the seat allocation.
I'm not sure I should be penalised each time they change the booking without contacting me first...

 

[mardy]

Positive result! checked in early to get a window seat row 5.

i only hope the reservation system will sort out these sorts of things in the future...

 

[Boris spatsky]

Good work!