Qantas-Couples not guaranteed seats together

[Rahamat]

I booked Qantas flights to Europe via Dubai for myself and my wife. Once the booking was done, I proceeded to make seat selection. I was able to choose the seats for flight from Melbourne to Dubai (Emirates Aircraft), Dubai to Rome (Emirates Aircraft), London to Dubai (Emirates Aircraft) free of charge. However when I tried to select seats from Dubai to Sydney (Qantas Aircraft) it was not free but Qantas wanted me to pay $25 per seat. On Emirates aircraft, I was allocated to chosen seats. When I went to Dubai airport for check-in, I was told that we could not be seated together. The guy was kind enough to call some one and that someone immediately. within seconds, allocated us seats together. Obviously I was disappointed and I sent in a feedback to Qantas and asked them two questions:
1. When I went for check in at Dubai airport, I was advised that there were no seats together. The officer called some one and within moments the seats were allocated together. How were the seats allocated together when there were no seats together few moments before?
2. If I am traveling with my wife and do not decide to pay and choose the seats, does this mean that we can be seated separately?
I received a reply almost after a month dated 24th July 2013, see below. I replied to the email, see below, on 24th July 2013. I received the following reply from Qantas on 26th July 2013.This clearly states that Qantas is unable to give me answer to my first question and that Qantas confirms that if a couple chooses not to pay and choose seats, they can be seated separately.

I think Qantas told me a lie that there were no seats together as they wanted me to pay for the seat selection as how can there be seats together when there were no seats few moments before.

[FONT=&amp]Dear Mr <Rahamat>[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]Thank you for your response.[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]I am sorry that I am unable to answer your specific question as to the reason we were initially unable to allocate adjacent seats to you and your wife, although this was rectified.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]
What I can let you know is that most of our customers select their seats in advance and yes, it can happen they we are not always able to seat you together. This is the situation of most airlines worldwide.[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]Kind regards[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]<name redacted>[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Customer Care [/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]From:[/FONT][FONT=&amp] xx_
Sent: Wednesday, 24 July 2013 1:15 PM
To: SHR CUSTOMER CARE
Subject: RE: Qantas Airways;Ref: VH/201361168[/FONT]
​

[FONT=&amp]Thank you for your reply but I do not think you have answered all my questions. When I checked in Dubai airport, I was told that the there were no seats for us together. The officer was kind enough to call someone and then suddenly there were seats together. If the officer would have been rude and did not call, we would not have been sitting together for that long journey of 13 plus hours. My question is that how come there were seats together when there was none available few moments earlier. Secondly and most important question is if I did not pay and chose the seat, does this mean that if I am travelling with my wife, we will not be seated together.[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]I will appreciate if you could answer directly my two questions so that I can let the world know your policies in this regard.[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]Will appreciate if you could reply sooner than the prior reply.[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]Regards[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]<Rahamat>[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]From:[/FONT][FONT=&amp] SHR CUSTOMER CARE [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, 24 July 2013 1:07 PM
To: Rahamat Ali
Subject: Qantas Airways[/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]Ref: VH/201361168 [/FONT]




[FONT=&amp]Dear <Rahamat[/FONT]>

[FONT=&amp]Thank you for taking the time out of your day to contact us. I was sorry to learn of your disappointment in our service fee for some customers to select a seat in advance.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]This charge does not apply to Silver, Gold and Platinum Frequent Flyers and, while it is not charged by Emirates, it is in line with other carriers worldwide.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]Please be assured we are listening and the points you have raised will be brought to the attention of management as part of this process.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]Once again, thank you for taking the time to write. [/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]Yours sincerely[/FONT]


<name redacted>
Customer Care Executive
[FONT=&amp]24 July 2013[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]

************** PLEASE CONSIDER OUR ENVIRONMENT BEFORE PRINTING *************[/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]******************* Confidentiality and Privilege Notice ******************* [/FONT]​

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[FONT=&amp]Qantas Airways Limited ABN 16 009 661 901 [/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]Visit Qantas online at Qantas - flights to Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Asia. Book airfares at qantas.com. [/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]**************************************************************************** [/FONT]​

[FONT=&amp]

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[mannej]

You chose to play the lottery by not paying for seat selection and lost.
It happens in more airlines than QF, and most are quite flippant when pressed on the issue.
The reason your two seats became available is the CSO in Dubai more than likely swapped someone to open up two seats together.
No point complaining about it when you risked the potential consequence by not paying for seat selection...
As an aside - MH are terrible with this, and aren't helped by their non functional website

 

[serfty]

Welcome to AFF

Did you try to on line check in 24 hours before your flight?

- you can then select seating on Qantas flights at no cost.

I am quite cough when it comes to seat selection and check, recheck and recheck again. Then I check again.

 

[markis10]

you can then select seating on Qantas flights at no cost..

Only for Silver, Gold and Platinum Frequent Flyers, on Qantas operated international flights.

 

[THE TRIMMER]

Wouldn,t it be nice of Qantas to also let paid members of the Qantas club have free seat selection as well????

 

[serfty]

Only for Silver, Gold and Platinum Frequent Flyers, on Qantas operated international flights.

What? even with on line check in?

 

[yohy?!]

not something to get worked up on or be shocked by I'm afraid.

all airlines reserve the right to assign seats any way they wish for operational reasons - that includes not seating couples together, although it's obviously something that is avoided when at all possible.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

markus is incorrect, online check-in ANYBODY can do seat selection, I did it for my bronze status Aunt just a few days ago.

As to the OP, are you kidding? You got what you wanted and you didn't pay for it so you lodged a complaint?????? The phone call was probably to someone higher up the chain to release a blocked seat, count yourself lucky.

 

[serfty]

...

Did you try to on line check in 24 hours before your flight?

- you can then select seating on Qantas flights at no cost. ...

What? even with on line check in? Policies and Procedures - Advance Seat Selection

OK, it certainly should be 'for free':

Alternatively, you customer can select your seat for free within 24 hours of departure via Online Check-in or the Check-in Kiosks at the airport. Find out more about your Check-in Seat Selection options.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

OK, it certainly should be 'for free':

it is, ive checked in loads of people at t-24 and can pick seats

 

[markis10]

markus is incorrect, online check-in ANYBODY can do seat selection, I did it for my bronze status Aunt just a few days ago.

As to the OP, are you kidding? You got what you wanted and you didn't pay for it so you lodged a complaint?????? The phone call was probably to someone higher up the chain to release a blocked seat, count yourself lucky.

I was referring to advanced seat selection, not OLCI which I somehow missed.

 

[lc_461]

To answer your first question- it is possible (and quite common amongst some airlines on busy flights) to block off seats before checkin opens, that are then able to be released by the supervisor for situations such as these. I work for a different airline that uses the same check in system as QF, and the computer may not have been able to find 2x seats together- and thus automatically allocated separate.

A quick call to the service desk to release the blocked seats - and hey presto you are together.

Im not sure if this is QF's policy but I imagine it would be something similar. Lucky you had a CSA that was paying attention!

 

[burmans]

1. When I went for check in at Dubai airport, I was advised that there were no seats together. The officer called some one and within moments the seats were allocated together. How were the seats allocated together when there were no seats together few moments before?

​

Must admit am struggling to understand why anyone would take the time writing not one but two emails and then post here about this. Given the problem was resolved within moments not really sure why you'd want to spend the time interogating Qantas about the why of this.

It's pretty clear to me with any booking system which allows people to allocate seats as you go that the siuation eventually arises on a full opr close to full situation where you have a number of single seats. Have seen this happen in other booking systems as well, e.g. movies, theater, sport events.​

 

[RooFlyer]

<snip>

As to the OP, are you kidding? You got what you wanted and you didn't pay for it so you lodged a complaint?????? The phone call was probably to someone higher up the chain to release a blocked seat, count yourself lucky.

Aussie_flyer and others taking pot-shots at the OP. It was his first post on AFF. That alone should engender some tolerance, even if the old hands think it was "silly" or similar sentiments.

Welcome Rahamat!

FWIW, I think its perfectly reasonable for anybody, especially some-one who isn't a regular flyer to contact QF and ask questions about their experience. It didn't read as a "complaint" as such, although clearly the OP was dissatisfied with the process. And when I get a brush-off reply from QF or any such organisation, not answering the specific query I put the first time, I certainly follow up.

 

[JohnPhelan]

1. The QF person very kindly either released a blocked seat for you (perhaps even a WP shadow seat!!) or moved another passenger so you could get two seats together.
2. The lesson learned is that you should either pay to allocate the seats you want, OR do online check-in 24 hours prior to your flight.

 

[NM]

Disclaimer - this is my understand of the QF check-in system, based on my personal experience, research, discussions etc with various fellow travelers and QF staff.

One important thing to understand is the way in which seats are "offered" for selection to different passengers. The seat allocation system uses a concept of virtual seating and keeps track of all unallocated seats, but will only offer a subset of those to any specific passenger. The seats offered will be based on a nnumber of factors, which may include the passenger's frequent flyer status, the fare they paid, the load factor of the flight, the FF status and fares paid by other passengers on the flight etc. This is done so that those passengers with higher FF status and paying the more expensive fares will have the best selection of seats available to them even if they are selecting their seat late in the booking or check-in process.

So it is common to see groups of seats (often entire rows or even large groups) that are blocked and not available for many passengers to select. This has two advantages for Qantas; high value customers (high status FF members buying flexible fares) will still be able to select desirable seats late in the process, and there is more likely to be flexible for seating couples/families etc together during the check-in process.

I suggest this is what happened to the OP in Dubai. At check-in, the computer was only offering a small selection of seats and none of those selected were adjacent, hence they were not able to be seated together. When the check-in agent made a phone call, the person on the other end of the line was able to over-ride the "offered seat" listing and allocate them to a pair of adjacent seats that remained previously unallocated but were blocked from being made available through the normal check-in offer process.

I very much like and appreciate this way that Qantas holds back some seats, including desirable seats (those at the front of the cabin, bulkhead rows etc), blocks of adjacent seats (generally entire rows in groups of 2, 3 or 4 adjacent seats) and special needs seats such as bassinet positions. This works very well for high-status members booking late and still being able to select desirable seats, as well as allowing bassinet positions to be assigned at check-in to those with the need, and as the OP experienced, allowing the normal seats "offer" to be over-ridden by someone with the appropriate authority to allow a traveling party to be seated together.

So I believe the OP should be thanking Qantas for implementing a seating allocation system that worked in their favour rather than complaining about it. With many airlines (and my mind goes directly to many USA-based airlines), all unallocated seats are available for anyone to select and if you book late or check-in late you get stuck with whatever is left and often no chance to be seated next to your traveling partner. The only area that Qantas failed was in not explaining the seat allocation process and the fact that adjacent seats were not initially available does not mean there are not adjacent seats that have not yet been assigned to passengers. A request at check-in, which should result in a phone call to the appropriate department, will almost always result in a group being seated together, even if not originally offered by the check-in system. But it is always advisable to check-in early to minimise the chance of not being able to be seated together.

This process is also complicated by the fact that the flight in question is a continuation of the LHR-DXB service, so the system has to consider through/continuing passengers as well as single-segment passengers (inbound and outbound). In my experience, the Qantas system handles this very well. There will always be exceptions, but mostly it works very well.

Note that regular check-in agents do not have the authority to over-ride the "offer" from the system. This is a specific restriction of the system to protect passengers and agents from misuse. The people with the authority to over-ride the offers also have the ability to do things like initiate an operational upgrade for an appropriate passenger in order to create a block or adjacent seats for the party trying to check-in.

 

[JohnK]

Welcome to AFF Rahamat!

This is common practice amongst most airlines. Allow their higher status frequent flyers to allocate complimentary seats and the lower members to pay for seat allocation at time of booking or allocate seats using Online check-in.

If you have not allocated seats and by the time you arrive at the airport to check-in the flight is full the only you coud be seated together was to move someone else from their allocated seat. That is not a good solution either for the person moved if they are moved to worse seat.

It is always best to carefully prepare for these situations and not take a chance waiting for the last minute.

 

[Moody]

I feel for you, Rahamat. You had good reason to be concerned by the comparitively poor seat allocation service offered by Qantas, and all you get for raising those concerns was a fob-off from Qantas and something ruder from AFF.

Whilst the post from NM had many good points, it did not answer the question on my lips - Why would the system allow a situation where pax on a single PNR are split involuntarily? Seems like a fundamental rule but I have seen it broken even when seat allocation was done prior to an early check-in. To be told that I couldn't be seated with my wife and small children on a Sydney to London trip was astounding. Fortunately the check-in agent was eventually able to find 4 seats together (and I couldn't give a rats cough if some DYKWIA had to be removed from their favourite seat).


I thought about raising this officially with Qantas at the time, but some sixth sense told me what the outcome would be. And I was right!

 

[serfty]

Who's to to say they were not originally pre-allocated together but were separated by some careless agent failing to follow standard process in moving other passengers around.

I state this as those PAX without seats selected are auto allocated at least 24 hour beforehand and two PAX on the same PNR not being able to be seated together would raise flags many hours before they arrived at the airport.

 

[NM]

Whilst the post from NM had many good points, it did not answer the question on my lips - Why would the system allow a situation where pax on a single PNR are split involuntarily?

Ahh, now you are expecting logic to be applied . Yes, it would indeed seem sensible that the seat allocation system would have some knowledge of passengers traveling on the same PNR and to assume they should be seated adjacent. While I have always found this to be the case, my bookings have always had my FF number and hence status firmly entrenched in the PNR, which may make a significant difference. However, I do totally agree that anyone with a single booking (PNR if you like) that includes two or more passengers should be able to expect adjacent seats to be assigned automatically. Any time that does not happen (as indicated by the OP's report), I would consider it a failure of the system.

Seems like a fundamental rule but I have seen it broken even when seat allocation was done prior to an early check-in. To be told that I couldn't be seated with my wife and small children on a Sydney to London trip was astounding. Fortunately the check-in agent was eventually able to find 4 seats together (and I couldn't give a rats cough if some DYKWIA had to be removed from their favourite seat).

I expect that row of four seats was still unallocated at the time you were assigned the seats. They were just being held back by the system for this very situation. So it is most unlikely that anyone was removed from their favourite seat to accommodate your family group. But if there was someone moved to accommodate your group, they would likely have found themselves the recipient of an operational upgrade.


I thought about raising this officially with Qantas at the time, but some sixth sense told me what the outcome would be. And I was right![/QUOTE]