Config. Change - No Business Class - no economy seat selection allowed?

[duttonbay]

I booked a classic reward business class Melbourne-Hobart for my wife and I as part of our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations in May. We now discover on the outgoing flight the plane has changed, and now no longer has business class. That's unfortunate, however our allocated economy seats are 11D, 12F which seems really weird when there are pairs of seats available on the flight. What's worse is there appears to be no way to change these seats.

Is there anything I can do to at least sit next to my wife on this flight?

 

[Guvner]

Call in.

 

[duttonbay]

Call in.

Yep, I'm on the road at the moment, but will be home by the weekend, and was planning to do that. Don't know know how successful I will be, but will try...

 

[adenda]

Assuming it's a Qantas flight, try Manage My Booking on rj.com

 

[ferntree]

Been one of my griefs post covid that so many HBA flights are Y only.

Worth phoning the call centre to see if any possibility of being moved to an alternative flight with J available.

And (in advance) welcome to Tas!

 

[PERLHR]

Try also the Finnair site to see if you can change seats. Very odd but it's QF!!

 

[duttonbay]

Yes, it is a QF flight. Sorry, meant to state that up front.

Bothrj.com and finnair.com show our details but I can't find any way to change the seat allocation. The RJ site says we are booked "Economy Restricted" outbound, so perhaps the "restricted" means unable to change seat allocation. I shall call in a couple of days when I am at home and have more time to spend on hold..

 

[RooFlyer]

Been one of my griefs post covid that so many HBA flights are Y only.

Fly VA more often.

 

[duttonbay]

Fly VA more often.

I was actually planning to pay for VA business class flights to and from Hobart, but the price jumped up about $150-200 the night before we finally committed to go. I thought "aha, I can use some of my QF points"

 

[RooFlyer]

I was actually planning to pay for VA business class flights to and from Hobart, but the price jumped up about $150-200 the night before we finally committed to go. I thought "aha, I can use some of my QF points"

Yes, exact same thought and result happened to me last time I booked Qantas with points (although it could happen equally with revenue ticket). I'm not even bothering to chase a refund of the points difference, they are of so little value.

 

[GDale]

Could it be that your reservation needs to be reticketed and this hasn't been done? That sometimes prevents you from selecting seats (system allocated seat assignments will often stick even without ticketing, but changes can't be made until after ticketing)

 

[duttonbay]

I have received an amended E-ticket, which I assume means it has been ticketed.

 

[docjames]

Is there an alternative flight time that still has business class seating (available) That would work for you? Could call and ask for that.

I’d also be ensuring if you travel in Y to get a refund of points back to the Y classic award (points) cost.

 

[duttonbay]

I've been very busy, without enough time to spend on the phone waiting for Qantas. Today with nowhere to go I decided to make the call, but checked the seating availability on the flight first. This time I logged in via Qantas frequent flyer (rather than simply clicking the "manage" link in the email) and lo-and-behold I was able to select our seats. So we are now sitting side-by-side, in a pair, and ahead of the seats where Qantas plonked us.

Case closed.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I had a similar downgrade, on day of departure I was ab,e to select row 1. I guess this opens up at T-80. Might be worth snagging.

 

[justinbrett]

Fly VA more often.

And get this:

Downgrades can happen for variety of reasons ofcourse. Not notifying pax booked in J and downgrading due to aircraft change as all Y config is bordering on robbery as they obviously know. I do however stress that VA sent me an e mail to contact them on impending change for one flight and did nothing on another so they can't even be consistent.

 

[AIRwin]

Case closed.

Refund of points difference?