Seat Allocation for non-Status & Different PNR

[lsmi4126]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some sage advice.

I'm 'escorting' my 90-odd year old grandparents to Perth later this month. I'm Gold, they hold no DJ status and I'm on a different PNR to them (with different return dates).

I've been able to select my seat (7J), however on calling the 'Velocity Gold' line, I was told there was no way to have my grandparents assigned 6G and 7I as they have no status and booked saver fares. All that could be done was to put a note on their booking saying they're travelling with me and to allocate seats accordings 'for the check-in staff'.

Does anyone have any experience here?

Thanks in advance.

lsmi4126

 

[docjames]

/sage advice on/

Given it's important to you to sit together (presumably as they're 90yo) maybe the advice would be to sit down the back with them?

 

[lsmi4126]

Given it's important to you to sit together (presumably as they're 90yo) maybe the advice would be to sit down the back with them?

That horrible thought had crossed my mind, however even then as I can't assign us all seats together now, there's no guarantee it'll happen at check-in...

 

[simongr]

OLCI at T-24 and grab seats together AT THE BACK. Have you checked the loadings to see if it is a full flight?

 

[koonyaflyer]

Hi All,


I've been able to select my seat (7J), however on calling the 'Velocity Gold' line, I was told there was no way to have my grandparents assigned 6G and 7I as they have no status and booked saver fares. All that could be done was to put a note on their booking saying they're travelling with me and to allocate seats accordings 'for the check-in staff'.

Does anyone have any experience here?


lsmi4126

I had a great experience yesterday. Similar situation with 2 separate bookings, one with status and the other with none. I rang and asked for the bookings to be noted as traveling together. The night before travel we had a phone call from the Canberra Lounge checking details to make sure we were seated together!

Impressed that they actually cared....especially as the flight was 100% capacity!

 

[docjames]

Yep, OLCI at T-23h59m and again get to the airport early and try and improve the situation.

I'm guessing your 90yo grandparents wont care where they sit on the plane (most dont).

 

[notmensa]

Staff in the Lounge in MEL were able to put notes in bookings for me (Plat) and MrNotmensa (no status), three nights before we flew. The only hassle was that we couldn't use OLCI, I assume because of the 'special requests'.

Your situation possibly qualifies as a 'special request' booking - have you tried ringing the Guest Contact Centre to see what they can offer?

-n

 

[Bolthead]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some sage advice.

I'm 'escorting' my 90-odd year old grandparents to Perth later this month. I'm Gold, they hold no DJ status and I'm on a different PNR to them (with different return dates).

I've been able to select my seat (7J), however on calling the 'Velocity Gold' line, I was told there was no way to have my grandparents assigned 6G and 7I as they have no status and booked saver fares. All that could be done was to put a note on their booking saying they're travelling with me and to allocate seats accordings 'for the check-in staff'.

Does anyone have any experience here?

Thanks in advance.

lsmi4126

Same problem here...... I rang up the Platinum hot line and they had no idea how to have my daughter who is a Silver sit next to me (Platinum). Very odd I thought considering the supervisor also had no access to fix this. His suggestion was for me to sit back with my daughter so I told him what I thought about that.

 

[an*g-bne]

About 2 months ago, I was travelling same day return BNE-MEL-BNE with Master AN*G on separate PNRs. Now, Master AN*G is a well seasoned international traveller, and a *G in his own right with almost 200k J BIS, but had no DJ status (pre status match). I have DJ-Gold.

After making the bookings (Flexi outbound, Saver inbound fares for Master AN*G), at 14 days out, I did an online seat allocation, and found that I could allocate my usual row 3 for myself, but row 10 was the first row visible for Master AN*G. So, I booked us 10A and 10B BNE-MEL, which at that stage was already very close to capacity (only Y bucket left), but didn't bother doing any seat allocations for MEL-BNE, which was wide open in all buckets (edit: actually, just realised that I couldn't have anyway, since Master AN*G was a no status PAX on a Saver fare).

At T-24, I checked us in to BNE-MEL, into the pre-allocated 10A and 10B, and noticed that the flight was completely full with no option to change seats. At the return T-24, checked us into MEL-BNE, hoping to pick up something close to the front with OLCI open, and found that we'd been pre-allocated 3E and 3F for MEL-BNE .

Anyhow, got to the gate, and my boarding pass double-beeped, and I was handed a new BP for 1D. Then, the gate agent scanned Master AN*G's BP, and it went through. So, one op-up only, and obviously, that wasn't going to work. Despite his nearly 200k BIS, you still don't leave 8 year olds travelling unaccompanied. So, we were directed to the service counter to get it resolved. Both Y and PE were full, and the other opup had already boarded, as had the passenger who had been given my 10B. So, the agent had to find two single passengers seated together but not travelling together, who had not boarded yet, and give one of them Master AN*G's 10A, and the other my 1D. Eventually, we were given seats in row 17 or 18 (can't remember now), together with an apology.

I did find out something interesting though, in conversation whilst the re-shuffling was going on. I had been op-up'ed because I was a Gold sitting in a rear-ish middle seat. Maybe next time I'm on a totally full Y plane, I should book 20-something B or E...

Back to the point though - even pre-allocating yourself to a rear seat so that you can sit with your non-status co-travellers who are on different PNRs, may not work. And yes, I did have the two bookings TCPed together. I assume though, when they're in the process of doing a battlefield upgrade to get the plane fully loaded, they don't have time to read the SSR notes.

 

[maninblack]

Of course the airline can fix this situation, all that is required is the will to do so. If they cannot allocate them seats with you then their system is deficient. They must be able to deal with special circumstances.

The Virgin seating system is very odd. Why can't non-status and non-flexi customers select their seats even if perhaps they are restricted to the rear section.

Your situation would be accomodated by QF I believe. Perhaps take your business there.