Qantas Domestic Seat Allocation

[hotpaws]

I am a QFF Silver, with expectations of reaching Gold next month, and numerous forward bookings (domestic).
I love the ability to select seats at the time of booking, but find that I have quite limited seat selection available to me.
My next trip is to Adl-Bne return, in Business (booked as supersaver and upgraded). My initial economy selection was only from row 17 back, then my business selection was row 3.
The following trip is paid business, Adelaide to Canberra via Sydney return, once again, I have the choice of row 3 only on the Adelaide to Sydney flight, and only rows 4 and 5 (on 734) on the Sydney to Canberra and back legs.
After this my Adl- Asp flights, both legs, only able to choose row 17 and back. First trip is Red E deal, second is Supersaver (I plan to upgrade).

My questions are - is this what other lower status flyers are being offered?
Will my options improve once I reach Gold after the next trip.

Thanks for your help.

 

[simongr]

Not a low status pax here but some of my team are. The silvers and bronzers do indeed get much further back. As a Plat I can't preallocate the front two rows of economy domestically or the front row of business.

 

[nlagalle]

I am a QFF Silver, with expectations of reaching Gold next month, and numerous forward bookings (domestic).
I love the ability to select seats at the time of booking, but find that I have quite limited seat selection available to me.
My next trip is to Adl-Bne return, in Business (booked as supersaver and upgraded). My initial economy selection was only from row 17 back, then my business selection was row 3.
The following trip is paid business, Adelaide to Canberra via Sydney return, once again, I have the choice of row 3 only on the Adelaide to Sydney flight, and only rows 4 and 5 (on 734) on the Sydney to Canberra and back legs.
After this my Adl- Asp flights, both legs, only able to choose row 17 and back. First trip is Red E deal, second is Supersaver (I plan to upgrade).

My questions are - is this what other lower status flyers are being offered?
Will my options improve once I reach Gold after the next trip.

Thanks for your help.

when I was Gold i could pre-select row 10 back on a 737 or row 3 in J. of course at T-80 i could usually move forward.

As a WP i can pre-select row 6 back in economy and row 2 in J again on a 737.

Cheers,

Nick

 

[MatF]

Yep, as the other guys have said, as a WP I can preselect anything in row 6 back on a 737 or row 25 back on a 767 at time of booking.
At T-80 I then jump back in and can select any unallocated Y seat on either aircraft.

Don't know about J

 

[whughes3]

J is much the same..at T-80 you can (almost always) get in and allocate any available seat, including row 1.

 

[pshepvic]

As Gold I can select the following:
737 - From Row 11 in Y, Row 3 only in J
767 - From Row 30 in Y, Rows 4 & 5 in J

My partner is Platinum and can select the following:
737 - From Row 6 in Y, Row 2 & 3 in J
767 - From Row 25 in Y, From Row 2 in J

My understanding is the front row of J and first two rows of Y are reserved for for CL.

From memory the A330 is similar to the 767

At T-80 though all unallocated seating will open up, including front rows of each section.

There is another thread on this topic, but I can't quite remember what it is called. It goes into detail how allocations work, when they were introduced some time back.

It does raise another question for me: What happens (for example) if I book J on a 737, and all seats in row 3 are already allocated? Does this mean that row 1 or 2 will open up? Or does it mean that I have to wait until T-80 to select a seat?

 

[oz_mark]

As Gold I can select the following:
737 - From Row 10 in Y, Row 3 only in J
767 - From Row 30 in Y, Rows 4 & 5 in J

Interesting, on all my 737 flights I can only get as far forward as Row 11 (as gold). Maybe there is a difference between the 734s and 738s. All my current bookings look to be 738s.

It does raise another question for me: What happens (for example) if I book J on a 737, and all seats in row 3 are already allocated? Does this mean that row 1 or 2 will open up? Or does it mean that I have to wait until T-80 to select a seat?

As far as I am aware, prior to T-80 you can just see basic blocks of seats. It is not until T-80 when the flight moves to airport control that the OLCI methodology comes into play and you start seeing seats come and go.

 

[pshepvic]

Interesting, on all my 737 flights I can only get as far forward as Row 11 (as gold). Maybe there is a difference between the 734s and 738s. All my current bookings look to be 738s.

Sorry - that should have been row 11, not 10, will edit the previous post!

 

[arraitch]

Was http://www.australianfrequentflyer....s-seat-availability-booking-change-25529.html what you had in mind, pshepvic?

 

[pshepvic]

Was http://www.australianfrequentflyer....s-seat-availability-booking-change-25529.html what you had in mind, pshepvic?

I think there might have been one even earlier than that - around the time they original introduced online seat allocation before checkin. But yeah this one pretty much covers it as well!

EDIT: Actually yes you're right, that was the thread! I just thought it was further back than Sept last year (as I made a couple of posts on it but forgot it was that recent)

A slightly off-topic question - I spoke to a rep from the FF call centre several years ago who said that once you are WP, if you want they can arrange a "physical assessment" (ie. look at you and make sure you meet the requirements) for an exit row, and they can allow you to have exit-rows saved in your profile as your preference for seating. I'm not sure if this still exists, or if they removed it with the move to pre-allocating seats. Can anyone shed any light on this, as I'll be WP in about 13 days...

 

[medhead]

Interesting, on all my 737 flights I can only get as far forward as Row 11 (as gold). Maybe there is a difference between the 734s and 738s. All my current bookings look to be 738s.

It does vary depending on 734 vs 738. Row 10 on the 734 IME. I only noted this because I had a couple of 738s change to 734 and I realised that I would have scored an exit row if I had of stayed in row 11 instead of jumping into the newly available row 10.