Qantas codeshare seat selection on AA ticketed trip

[jb81]

Hi,

This forum seems to provide some very helpful information, so I thought I'd post here rather than spend more time on hold with airline call centres who are unable to resolve this for me. I've read through various articles on similar topics but suggestions there don't seem to work for me.

I have booked a trip next year for a family of 6, booked directly with AA, the trip includes both international legs (Qantas operated flights between Australia and the US with AA flight numbers) and US domestic legs (operated by AA, with AA flight numbers). I can select seats on the AA legs on aa.com, no problems. No matter what I do, I can't select seats on the Qantas operated legs.

• I have both the AA and Qantas 6 character reservation/confirmation codes (I assume these are the PNRs).
• AA site says "Please contact QANTAS for your seat assignment."
• Qantas site, using AA confirmation code gives me window/aisle preference, but kicks me off the seat selection page, and back to the manage booking page before I can even make a selection.
• Qantas site, using Qantas confirmation code gives me a seat map, I can select seats, but when I save, it takes me back to the start and none of my selections are saved EXCEPT for my final leg, where I have a stopover in SYD and a domestic connection to MEL... for some reason the SYD->MEL connection seat selection is saved. But no matter what I do, the outbound and inbound international flights won't save.
• Called Qantas, they said seat selection is restricted since I booked with AA. If so, how come I was able to do this for the domestic connection?

I'm travelling with young kids, so would obviously prefer to sit together, hence the desire to select seats!

Is it worth calling AA? One other discussion suggested they can put a manual request in to Qantas.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks,
John

 

[burmans]

From memory I think I used Royal Jordanian site to seat select using QF PNR

 

[SYD]

@jb81 welcome to AFF!

Do you have FF status with QF? Normally you need status or be prepared to pay for seat selection before checkin opens.

If you do have status, hopefully the suggestion above using rj.com works.

 

[djkelly69]

I would be trying each of your PNRs on the websites of other OneWorld carriers, such as RJ, QR, AY, JL (while not logged in) etc, and seeing how you go.

 

[Rich]

Hi,

This forum seems to provide some very helpful information, so I thought I'd post here rather than spend more time on hold with airline call centres who are unable to resolve this for me. I've read through various articles on similar topics but suggestions there don't seem to work for me.

I have booked a trip next year for a family of 6, booked directly with AA, the trip includes both international legs (Qantas operated flights between Australia and the US with AA flight numbers) and US domestic legs (operated by AA, with AA flight numbers). I can select seats on the AA legs on aa.com, no problems. No matter what I do, I can't select seats on the Qantas operated legs.

• I have both the AA and Qantas 6 character reservation/confirmation codes (I assume these are the PNRs).
• AA site says "Please contact QANTAS for your seat assignment."
• Qantas site, using AA confirmation code gives me window/aisle preference, but kicks me off the seat selection page, and back to the manage booking page before I can even make a selection.
• Qantas site, using Qantas confirmation code gives me a seat map, I can select seats, but when I save, it takes me back to the start and none of my selections are saved EXCEPT for my final leg, where I have a stopover in SYD and a domestic connection to MEL... for some reason the SYD->MEL connection seat selection is saved. But no matter what I do, the outbound and inbound international flights won't save.
• Called Qantas, they said seat selection is restricted since I booked with AA. If so, how come I was able to do this for the domestic connection?

I'm travelling with young kids, so would obviously prefer to sit together, hence the desire to select seats!

Is it worth calling AA? One other discussion suggested they can put a manual request in to Qantas.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks,
John

(Edited)
Weird, it works the other way. I have a QF booking with some AA flights. Qantas gave me the AA booking reference and I can select AA seats on their site with no problems.

 

[Thibault]

I was able to get my seats assigned on a QF service marketed by AA by calling QF very late in the evening and giving the ticket number to the consultant.

 

[jpp42]

Called Qantas, they said seat selection is restricted since I booked with AA. If so, how come I was able to do this for the domestic connection?

Note that Qantas only offers free seat selection on domestic flights, but not international, to ordinary members (non-status holders) on discount economy fares. The page allowing you to choose window/aisle preference is normal in this case. So I don't see that anything is wrong here (other than bad information from the Qantas rep, which is typical). Had you booked through Qantas you could have paid extra for seat selection but I don't believe that's possible when booked on the AA codeshare. Reference: https://www.qantas.com/au/en/travel-info/seat-selection.html

You should be able to select seats on the Qantas web site for free from T-72 (72 hours before flight time).

 

[djkelly69]

Call AA and ask for the QF booking reference and then find that booking referece on the QF site.

It says in the OP that they already tried this.

 

[Rich]

It says in the OP that they already tried this.

I don't know how I missed that!

 

[Rich]

Note that Qantas only offers free seat selection on domestic flights, but not international, to ordinary members (non-status holders) on discount economy fares

Funny how you can select seats for free with an award booking but not discount economy fares.
FWIW a fews ago I called QF about this for an economy booking to JFK because I didn't want to pay to select 5 seats. They assured me we would still be seated together and we were. When free seat selection opened up, there was no where to move, but it didn't matter.

 

[jpp42]

FWIW a fews ago I called QF about this for an economy booking to JFK because I didn't want to pay to select 5 seats. They assured me we would still be seated together and we were. When free seat selection opened up, there was no where to move, but it didn't matter.

This is actually the reason that Qantas doesn't want everyone to be able to select seats on international flights, they want to ensure that larger parties can be seated together, that families with infants can access the bassinet seats, etc. If everyone could select seats for free, it might be much harder for this to work out as there would be too many stranded middle seats, etc.

I believe there are also circumstances where if a certain number of seats are pre-selected, seat selection will be blocked (reverting to the window/aisle preference screen), for similar reasons - to preserve some flexibilty to seat larger parties together without having to change existing seat assignments.

 

[jb81]

Note that Qantas only offers free seat selection on domestic flights, but not international, to ordinary members (non-status holders) on discount economy fares. The page allowing you to choose window/aisle preference is normal in this case. So I don't see that anything is wrong here (other than bad information from the Qantas rep, which is typical). Had you booked through Qantas you could have paid extra for seat selection but I don't believe that's possible when booked on the AA codeshare. Reference: https://www.qantas.com/au/en/travel-info/seat-selection.html

You should be able to select seats on the Qantas web site for free from T-72 (72 hours before flight time).

The thing is, I don't see the page that allows you to choose window/aisle, I get the full seat selection screen, I can make selections, it's just that when i save these selections, it takes me back to the seat selection first page with none of my selections saved and no errors or other messages about what's going on.

 

[smckay]

Same as Rich, I have a current booking on QF using AA domestic US flight. With the AA PNR/Booking reference I was able to select seats.
Maybe contact AA and ask them for help? I have found the website chat to be very helpful and accommodating so that may be an option.

 

[jb81]

OK, sorted! As per Qantas/AA Seat selection I contacted AA directly (via Twitter), advised them that Qantas didn't allow seat selection on the codeshare flights and asked them to do this on my behalf. I told them the seats that I wanted and they allocated them for me!!!