Unable to change to Bus reward seat - new bookings only?

[QPProletarian]

Seeming to see a pattern lately - call centre declines to change flights over to available J seats online.

They also say they put in platinum request and its declined - despite not only sale revenue inventory but classic award inventory online.
No worries! you can do it as a new booking they say - WHY? Of course this breaks the non QF inventory on the ticket.

I'm told these seats are available for "new payments/bookings only and not changes" which just seems like a cop out. Why is there a distinction and how can we see/validate this?

 

[serfty]

I'm told these seats are available for "new payments/bookings only and not changes" which just seems like a cop out. Why is there a distinction and how can we see/validate this?

It is a cop out - it means the call centre staff is inadequate.

See this thread for many such anecdotes:

M

Post in thread 'Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread'

Dec 14, 2025

The system won't let you ticket it.



I don't know first hand as I personally don't talk to any of the offshore centres other than AKL, but I suspect a lot of the offshore contact centre staff (except AKL) don't know how to do a ticket exchange correctly and that's where they stumble. In fairness, AKL and HBA aren't infallible either.

As a rule of thumb, if the itinerary priced correctly for the original prime issue ticket, generally ticket exchanges should be fairly painless as well except if you introduce a flight that is not correctly filed (eg. a lot of the IB-South America...

• MEL_Traveller

• 

 

[QPProletarian]

What about the 'we tried to request it as a platinum release but it was unsuccessful' is that just fake also? seems so odd but is used to reinforce their claims only for new bookings.

 

[serfty]

What about the 'we tried to request it as a platinum release but it was unsuccessful' is that just fake also? seems so odd but is used to reinforce their claims only for new bookings.

Once being told the "Only for New Bookings" line I would think credibility diminishes significantly.

Even worse:

They also say they put in platinum request and its declined - despite not only sale revenue inventory but classic award inventory online.

Why a platinum request when U appeared to be directly available.

I'd HUACA .... starting from scratch.

 

[elanshin]

What about the 'we tried to request it as a platinum release but it was unsuccessful' is that just fake also? seems so odd but is used to reinforce their claims only for new bookings.

No that's not fake. They put it into the droid and tell you what the droid said.

The question here is is it a scenario where you have U1 available and you're trying to get a second U opened up?
There are definitely quirks with how the droid behaves in this situation.

My recent (already taken) flight. I9, U1 DPS - SYD.
Request for 2 - denied.

A bit more looking as round discovered the same flight had U2 if I did DPS-SYD-MEL so just booked that instead (was heading for MEL anyways).

If you have no alternative and are set on that flight, you may need to split, book one and request one but once you split you cant put the itinerary back into the same PNR.