QF online booking not recording seat preferences

[Platy]

Despite being QFF Platinum I have had numerous occasions of being given totally inappropriate seats relative to my preference. Gave QF a break for 2 months to support the competition and my first flight back on QF last week, guess what, given a seat halfway down the back. This is something I have complained about frequently over the last 12 months up to GM level and nobody could explain or fix it.

This time I am told that the online booking system does not populate the preference data from the profile, that it is a known fault and clearly has been for at least a year in my experience even though my QFF number was correcty entered during the booking process on each occasion.

In the end I did manage to upgrade making the seat preference debacle irrelevent, but only after being told there were no available upgrade seats. Gentle and polite persistence paid off, and guess what, subload staff in business class nicking seats off QFF who are supposed to get priority over subload staff according to QF management.

Best way to guarantee a seat is to pay for Blue Zone on Virgin even when you're a QFF Platinum.

So fellow QF travellers beware when booking online! Your seat preference may not appear on the booking!!! And if you can't get an upgrade check whether those subload staff are denying you an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of your frequent travel and QF loyalty and complain like mad.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of QF management arrogant attitude to loyal customers...which is a crying shame given many of the cabin crew are excellent

 

[dajop]

Platy,

Can you give us more details about what the sort of flights you are flying? Are they midweek sojourns to leisure destinations suchs as CNS & ASP, midday hops into/out of SYD, or serious business travel (ie SYD/MEL/CBR/ADL/BNE) at peak times (7-9am, 4-7pm). Also what letter does your surname start with (I have a hunch that this matters when there are lots of pax with the same status)?

If there are a lot of platinums on the plane (as would happen on business routes at peak hours) it is regular to be half way down the back (or further). If you are "forward aisle" (like lots of people), this will be especially true on narrow body aircraft (737s) where there are 2 aisle seats for every 6 seats, but less so on wide bodies (767's, 330's) where there are 4 aisle seats per 7 or 8 seats. Also note the window/aisle preference takes priority over a forward preference.