Preassigned family seating

[Katie]

Now that my TA has been able to find 3xR seats on QF15 on our date of flying, we have been preassigned seats by QF. Earlier in the week, we had been preassigned 23D, 24D, 24E with me in row 23 & Mr Katie and Miss Three in row 24. According to CMT and QF My Bookings, these were the only available seats in the Y+ cabin. I had hoped if we actually ended up with these seats when we boarded, that we'd be able to kindly ask the nice person in 24F if they would be willing to swap to 23D - another aisle seat.

The seats have shifted slightly since then, and we've now been assigned 23E and 24D,E, again with me in 23 and Mr Katie and Miss Three in 24. I'm not even going to go into middle seat when my preference (in my settings) is aisle, but I'm really interested that QF have put Mr Katie and Miss Three together, and not me with our daughter. I'm not saying they should only put a mother with their child in this instance when all three can't sit together, but am just intrigued that they are putting my husband with her. I'm wondering if anyone has an idea why QF would do this with the seat assignment? Why for once my QP NB spouse's aisle preference is topping mine?

The only reason I can think of is that I have not changed my name, and my daughter has her father's surname. So perhaps my different surname is putting me into the other row?? The two with the same surname look more like family members than I do??

Have you seen or experienced this before? I know family groups get split up between seats/rows all the time.

 

[NM]

Are these all on one PNR (the same booking reference number)?

I doubt the system is smart enough to "think" about which parent to seat next to a child. even though you will have provided the child's age, once allocate their own seat (i.e. not an "infant") the seat assignment system is unlikely to differentiate between a 3yo and a 16yo.

In my limited recent experience, family member's seats were allocated in the order the names appear on the PNR to available seats in the cabin.

You can go to Manage Your Booking on QF web site and select your own seats from those that the system makes available to you to choose.

 

[MelUser]

Last year we had 6 family members on PNR travelling to USA and back. I was lucky to get us all together but part of this was due to having a knowledgable person at the Premium Desk who knew who to manipulate seating.

The computer does not think about who is who but as NM says starts with the 1st passenger on PNR and works back.

It is very difficult in relatively small cabins such as Business or Premium to sit you together if there are already other seats taken.

The computer has its programming rules and follows these.

Note if you put an upgrade request in, you will be physically split up - some upstairs some downstairs and there is little they can/will do at airport.

You have to remember that QF's market research tells it that passengers want to be able to preseat themselves. This policy disadvantages family groups who wish to sit together in a cabin already dotted with seat allocations. QF will not generally shift passengers to accomodate a family group. Although on one occasion, QF staff did grovel to the person who had a bassinet position (which we needed for our infant) and this person (celebrity) agreed to give it up.

I have also found that incompetent QF staff in LAX have actually worsened our position.

At the airport, when staff check you in, they must actually hold/block your original seats until they have seated the whole party accordingly otherwise these seats can be snapped up by others. This requires a good grasp of the Amadeus Altea check in system.

If I was you, I would be grateful with what you have - you have Business Class seating but have paid for Premium Economy - this is something that most people would be prepared to trade for not perfect seat allocations.

 

[Katie]

Please don't misunderstand. I am not complaining about the seat assignments. I understand that these were what looks like the only seats left available in the cabin.
I'm jumping with joy that we've been able to swap to the direct flights, get the business seating, get to LAX sooner and home sooner on the way back, and have overall two less flights with our little one (and also, bye-bye 40 SCs, and perhaps 30k points, but that was my choice, taken with eyes wide open).

I'm simply curious about how the computer decides what it does. We've had seating across the aisle from one another before, but haven't been in the situation where the only available seats were in different rows. If they're the only seats, that will be just fine, but I would like to get it so that no-one else has to sit next to Miss Three. She's an extrovert, very curious, asks a million questions an hour. Some people would be fine sitting next to her, others wouldn't.

NM - I think you got it, my husband's name is at the top of our PNR, and it's been assigned that way, perhaps even in alphabetical order. By default with the way the TA has booked it, he's down as the main contact in our booking on the QF website, and I can't change that.