Seating Availability Queries

[infrequent_jim]

First post for me on this forum - we are infrequent fliers - maybe one overseas trip a year if we are lucky. We have bronze QFF cards.
We've just come back from a trip with Qantas to New York and Canada, and my attempts to select seats has left me with a sore head.

Because we flew over with my brother and his wife we paid to select seats so we could sit together on both legs. And because we were travelling by ourselves on the way back we thought we'd take pot luck and try to select seats in the 24hr before flight time. For the first leg JFK to LAX on QF108, by the time I tried to select (about T-22) there we no seats available for us to sit side by side, so I selected a couple of singles one row apart. Likewise for the second leg LX to MLB on QF94 the only seats I could select (all the rest were greyed) a pair of seats in the very back row, or the row 66 exit row seats, so I selected those at no cost. A couple of days earlier I had looked to see what was available if I wanted to pay to select, and nothing much had changed since then - ie almost every seat was greyed out.

When checking in I explained to the check-in clerk that I was unable to select seats together, and asked if he could change that. Happily he could, and upgraded us the Premium Economy (but with lay flay seats in row 29), but left us in the exit row seats for the last leg. Now keeping in mind that for the last leg all the seats were marked as unavailable, I was surprised to find that the flight was lightly loaded, and there were plenty of seats that we could have potentially selected.

So what was going there? Why are empty seats marked as unavailable for this infrequent flyer? Should I have not selected, and left the seat allocation to the clerk? What is your advice for our next infrequent flight?

 

[NM]

Qantas presents a view of available seats that is customised for each individual passenger and depends on many factors such as the fare paid and FF status. These things (and probably other factors) go towards defining you "value" and hence what seats are available to be selected. This ensures that some desirable seats are reserved for high value customers who may not have selected seating, book late or transfer to that flight as a result of irregular operations.

Hence, if you are not satisfied with the seats you have been assigned, its always worth getting to the check-in counter early as the agents there may have some greater flexibility, especially when it comes to seating people together.

But in my experience when passengers are listed on the same reservation (i.e. the same booking reference number) they are generally assigned seats together.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF infrequent_jim !

Situations like your LAX-MEL experiece (no or little seat choice given on a plane that ultimately is far from full) is always annoying, even for us lucky enough to have higher status. Sometimes you try to upgrade using points, to be shown none available, and when you board there are empty seats. Different reason, but still annoying.

I can't think of a reason offhand why greater choice could not have been given at check-in on a 'lightly loaded' QF 94 unless the (American) check-in agent mis-understood that you had a preference for exit row over sitting together. Accents can change understandings something chronic!

If you really want to go into this further, there are on-line tools available where you can look ahead for certain seats on certain flights, and even two together. And if they are not available when you look, you can set an 'alert' that will alert you if they do become available, so you can grab them from the airline. One tool is called "Expert Flyer" (expertflyer.com) . There is a free version, and a more sophisticated subscription version.

Not hard to use, but it may be more than you are looking for, being an infrequent flyer, as you say.

You will always be welcome to come back here and ask one of us to look things up for you

But as NM said, checking in early, as well as watching seat availability at the qantas site even daily if you can, is a good strategy.

 

[infrequent_jim]

Thanks for the informative replies - they explain the situation well. I've just had a look at Expert Flyer, and will try it out next time.