CX seat 'on request'. Chances of it holding?

[ChrisFlyer]

Hi all,

I have an upcoming trip to Asia, including both a CX and a KA leg ticketed through QF. Although I wasn't able to select seats on these flights through the QF site, I visited the CX site, but was still not able to make any changes - as apparently putting in a request for an aisle seat through QF automatically assigned me a confirmed seat, though I was then unable to change it.

I called CX today to change the allocation. No problems confirming extra legroom seats for myself (QF WP), though the seats I requested for my partner on the same PNR are showing online as 'On Request. Please check at the time of check-in', whereas mine are showing as confirmed. Her requested seats are showing as available on EF, whereas my CX seat is showing as occupied, and my KA seat as blocked (exit row).

Question is, are the 'on request' seats usually honoured where possible (ie blocking the seats to others during online check-in), or are they open to any status pax for selection prior to the flight? These are my first flights on both CX and KA, so I'm not sure how they usually do things!

Many thanks!

Edit: My partner is a QF NB, and we're travelling in O class (yes, no SCs, though comparing the price of a BNE-SYD-HKG return and what we booked that included PEK, the PEK flights are literally free, so I'm not concerned!) CX will only confirm seats for OW status pax and those travelling in Y, B, H, K, L, M, V, W, R, E class, thus the 'request' issue.

 

[yohy?!]

depends if other elites want them - unfortunately only OWE/OWS can nab good seats from themselves but not other non-elite pax in their booking

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Fair enough. FWIW, on checking the booking online again, they mucked up and put us 10 rows apart, so I called back. When they re-assigned seats for the KA flight, they 'accidentally' confirmed both of them (333 exit row)... For the CX flight (B773), I took 30C (first row of Y), and put the request on 30B - figuring that the chances of someone voluntarily selecting a middle seat would be far lower than an aisle if we did it the other way around! I'll set a reminder for T-48 (check-in), and we'll see what happens!

PS: It's a shame that you can't set a seat alert on EF for when a seat becomes occupied - would save me from re-checking every week or so until the departure!