Selecting seats - QF award on China Eastern

[ragingsheep]

Using www.travelsky.com/ I was able to validate my ticket numbers. Travelsky I believe is the Chinese centralised booking system like Sabre or Amadeus.

Your Qantas assigned ticket number goes in the first box, the second box is the passenger name of the format "Surname/FirstnameTitle". So for example, if the name on my ticket is Mr John Doe, I would enter DOE/JOHNMR. Sometimes, there's a space between the Firstname and Title so unfortunately, you need to play around with it.

 

[mathiar86]

It has been for some flights. But according to the MU and Qantas booking systems, MU561 reverts to 33H by the end of October 2019.

Looks like you’re right, only one flight per day on the A350 and from November they’re all a330
I’m a little annoyed with qantas for this. There is nothing by way of award availability between Australia and North America and only MU is an option. To spend upwards of 250k points to get this old product is a bit ridiculous

Ironically, I’ve never flown on an actual qantas plane with rewards, always on partners...

 

[Michael Vikatos]

I have been able to select seats directly on MU's Australian website: https://oa.ceair.com/au/en/select-seat.html using the QF issued ticket number without issue.

 

[mathiar86]

I’ll try it again. What did your QF number start with?

I have been able to select seats directly on MU's Australian website: https://oa.ceair.com/au/en/select-seat.html using the QF issued ticket number without issue.

 

[Michael Vikatos]

I’ll try it again. What did your QF number start with?

081. Although it was very slow and I couldn’t get it to work in chrome but worked in IE.

 

[gorodemon]

I followed the above instructions but I was got stuck at the next screen. It just kept loading with an small icon of plane flying left and right, back and forth lol. I tried to on Chrome and IE but it's still not working and my ticket starts with 081 too.

I also tried to contact China Eastern's offices in Melbourne and Sydney via email but I was told they could not help. This is really frustrating

I wanted to choose the J seat early to ensure my wife and our baby got the seat with bassinet allocated next to it because she'll be travelling on her own. On the booking page on Qantas website, I can see that she's been allocated to seat 6L but when I checked SeatGuru, there's no 6L on this flight!

 

[ragingsheep]

but when I checked SeatGuru, there's no 6L on this flight!

All the China Eastern planes have 6L on seat guru? It's the right window seat in the first row.

 

[gorodemon]

All the China Eastern planes have 6L on seat guru? It's the right window seat in the first row.

The flight number is MU737 from PVG to MEL and it has codeshare with QF342/341. I couldn't get the seat map when I search for MU737 but there's one for QF342. There are only A, E, F and K columns on the seating charts of this Boeing 787-9.

 

[mathiar86]

I followed the above instructions but I was got stuck at the next screen. It just kept loading with an small icon of plane flying left and right, back and forth lol. I tried to on Chrome and IE but it's still not working and my ticket starts with 081 too.

I also tried to contact China Eastern's offices in Melbourne and Sydney via email but I was told they could not help. This is really frustrating

I wanted to choose the J seat early to ensure my wife and our baby got the seat with bassinet allocated next to it because she'll be travelling on her own. On the booking page on Qantas website, I can see that she's been allocated to seat 6L but when I checked SeatGuru, there's no 6L on this flight!

China eastern emailed me back from the Sydney office with my seat numbers and they show up in my Qantas app
Cassie (as mentioned above) is the person I dealt with. Still shows I’m flying a a330-200 so fingers crossed for a late aircraft change

 

[ragingsheep]

Trip report: complete fail lol. Probably my fault but make sure to get your names exactly as they are on your passports because China Eastern can't / won't allow changes even though Qantas was happy to make them and reissue a ticket.

Also seat assignments don't seem to matter (at least in economy because I saw on the boarding passes that they printed that we got bumped from the window seats in row 62 to centre isle in row 74.

 

[mathiar86]

Trip report: complete fail lol. Probably my fault but make sure to get your names exactly as they are on your passports because China Eastern can't / won't allow changes even though Qantas was happy to make them and reissue a ticket.

Also seat assignments don't seem to matter (at least in economy because I saw on the boarding passes that they printed that we got bumped from the window seats in row 62 to centre isle in row 74.

Can you clarify a bit more? What happened with your ticket names and what do you mean by bumped from seats?

I’ve got seats assigned on the QF app and from their email
How did you resolve the names on the tickets?

 

[ragingsheep]

2 passengers have non-anglo saxon names that are technically 3 parts (first middle and surname). However on their passports their first and middle names have been combined into one and the middle names fell off somewhere between the Qantas booking engine and the China Eastern system. Therefore, because the names didn't match, MU refused to let the 2 check in and I'm pretty sure check in staff have been able to modify the names with my past experience but not in this particular case. Qantas was willing to reissue the tickets and modify the names on the ticket but apparently China Eastern is one of the few that won't let modifications happen (on QFF issued tickets?).

Also the conveyor belt system failed at Sydney airport and the line was huge so people were still in line to get their boarding passes with 45mins to go.

"resolved" by rebooking on Qantas aircraft.

what do you mean by bumped from seats?

When I was at the counter, the lady printed out all 3 boarding passes and I could see that they weren't in the pre-assigned seats.

 

[cvmceg]

2 passengers have non-anglo saxon names that are technically 3 parts (first middle and surname). However on their passports their first and middle names have been combined into one and the middle names fell off somewhere between the Qantas booking engine and the China Eastern system. Therefore, because the names didn't match, MU refused to let the 2 check in and I'm pretty sure check in staff have been able to modify the names with my past experience but not in this particular case. Qantas was willing to reissue the tickets and modify the names on the ticket but apparently China Eastern is one of the few that won't let modifications happen (on QFF issued tickets?).

Also the conveyor belt system failed at Sydney airport and the line was huge so people were still in line to get their boarding passes with 45mins to go.

"resolved" by rebooking on Qantas aircraft.



When I was at the counter, the lady printed out all 3 boarding passes and I could see that they weren't in the pre-assigned seats.

Sorry to hear this. I remain a little confused though. Ive just booked award flights on MU and am now a little concerned about this seat stuff.

Are you suggesting that your party of 3 pax checked in and MU didnt honour 2 of them because the names didnt match?

1 of my pax has two middle names and qantas said they were only able to fit in the first letter of the second middle name on the QF issued ticket ... Now im worried MU will say it doesnt match!!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Sorry to hear this. I remain a little confused though. Ive just booked award flights on MU and am now a little concerned about this seat stuff.

Are you suggesting that your party of 3 pax checked in and MU didnt honour 2 of them because the names didnt match?

1 of my pax has two middle names and qantas said they were only able to fit in the first letter of the second middle name on the QF issued ticket ... Now im worried MU will say it doesnt match!!

Different issue. In ragingsheep's example the passengers name is Mary Jane Smith but their passport shows Maryjane Smith. The middle name 'jane' got lost so the pax turned up with just Mary Smith. This is a difference of more than three letters (which was the accepted norm for name errors on tickets).

While the example looks straight forward for an english sounding name, for a non-english name it might not look like a simple mistake, and could in fact look like a different passenger.

 

[cvmceg]

Different issue. In ragingsheep's example the passengers name is Mary Jane Smith but their passport shows Maryjane Smith. The middle name 'jane' got lost so the pax turned up with just Mary Smith. This is a difference of more than three letters (which was the accepted norm for name errors on tickets).

While the example looks straight forward for an english sounding name, for a non-english name it might not look like a simple mistake, and could in fact look like a different passenger.

I understand. Though because of a character limit (according to the QF agent) Ive had to go with:
Passport name: Jane Mary Tiffany Smith
Passenger name: Jane Mary T Smith

As a precaution should I get in touch with MU ?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I understand. Though because of a character limit (according to the QF agent) Ive had to go with:
Passport name: Jane Mary Tiffany Smith
Passenger name: Jane Mary T Smith

As a precaution should I get in touch with MU ?

Absolutely not It could possibly end in unnecessary frustration on your behalf. Call centre agents don't usually have airport experience, which is what matters here. Often they end up advising passesngers to make expensive changes to reissue the ticket when it's just not going to be an issue (they'd rather cover themselves than give you the proper advice). Much like call centres telling people they need to get a visa for places when there may be no need to.

Your situation is perfectly ok. Many of us travel without middle names on tickets, depsite them being in the passport.

 

[ragingsheep]

Sorry to hear this. I remain a little confused though. Ive just booked award flights on MU and am now a little concerned about this seat stuff.

Are you suggesting that your party of 3 pax checked in and MU didnt honour 2 of them because the names didnt match?

1 of my pax has two middle names and qantas said they were only able to fit in the first letter of the second middle name on the QF issued ticket ... Now im worried MU will say it doesnt match!!

MEL_Traveller is correct in what happened to me, although one of the refused passenger's middle name was only 3 letters so I'm not sure if that part is 100% correct.

I can't comment on the middle names being too long for the ticket issue. The staff who manned the Qantas desk at the airport (where you'd purchase a new ticket) seem to be fairly knowledgeable in dealing with the MU system as did the supervisor sitting at the MU check in counter (not the regular check in agents) even if they were unable to help.

 

[cvmceg]

MEL_Traveller is correct in what happened to me, although one of the refused passenger's middle name was only 3 letters so I'm not sure if that part is 100% correct.

I can't comment on the middle names being too long for the ticket issue. The staff who manned the Qantas desk at the airport (where you'd purchase a new ticket) seem to be fairly knowledgeable in dealing with the MU system as did the supervisor sitting at the MU check in counter (not the regular check in agents) even if they were unable to help.

So QF rebooked you on a QF flight?
These were award seats, right?

 

[ragingsheep]

Yes to both, managed to get some award tickets on QF.

Copped a $210 Booking Fee for using the counter, paid the cash difference in taxes and charges. Points wise, the QF seats were cheaper so I got refund there minus the change of booking point penalties.

 

[cvmceg]

still sounds very stressful. that sucks