Who changed my pre-allocated seat and why?

[Ewing]

I wonder if the problem is that it puts everyone into 3C

So that's why my flight next week appears almost empty, apart from whoever is in 11D?



:mrgreen:

(3D/3F, 4D/4F and the exits always seem to be blocked and of course "Business" which they don't sell on this route is also blocked)

So far, I am always in the seat that I have pre-selected, so no need to move. Maybe there is a problem, and hence the consistency in this question being asked during check-in? Doesn’t anyone else get asked?

I am most of the time. My response is "Oh, but I preselected 3C" and then I get moved back.

 

[serfty]

... Maybe there is a problem, and hence the consistency in this question being asked during check-in? Doesn’t anyone else get asked?

Since 2011 I have never checked in at a counter when flying DJ on the flight originally book - the closest I get is upon lounge entry.

I have obviously have had face to face contact the couple of times I used the 'fly-away' bennie and once my flight was delayed so I would miss my connection and had to be rebooked.

Note the OP checks luggage so does need to check-in at the check-in counters. That is where they found the seat changed.

 

[pagingjoan]

I'm not beating up on QF - and I know this is on a DJ thread but the discussion has well and truly turned into a comparison, so will add my refutation of changes of preallocated seat not happening on QF and not happening for WPs.
Have been moved on a recent J long haul International from 1A to a middle section, after my preallocated seat having been showing in my booking for many weeks before departure and the change being notified only in the Lounge, when I enquired. Had not noticed at chec kin, as it was the first of a number of legs and the check in person was woefully inadequate and took forever to complete the formalities. All I wanted to do was escape his clutches.
My fault, you could say, for selecting 1A, with the possibility of having to move for someone needing a bassinet. Yes, I know the seats are not guaranteed, but why do those travelling with a baby get to choose on Departure Day if they need a specific seat. And what happens in these situations if there is no other J seat available for reallocation? There was no F on the flight.

 

[mardy]

It might be a different system but the J seat allocations for my BNE-LAX flights is a bit messed up on the website.
My return seat is showing as 3A even though the selector is showing someone else in that seat at the moment.

The staff have always been helpful in fixing my allocations over the phone (my flight was diverted to sydney at one point!) but it appears the IT systems are a bit broken...

 

[simongr]

I'm not beating up on QF - and I know this is on a DJ thread but the discussion has well and truly turned into a comparison, so will add my refutation of changes of preallocated seat not happening on QF and not happening for WPs.
Have been moved on a recent J long haul International from 1A to a middle section, after my preallocated seat having been showing in my booking for many weeks before departure and the change being notified only in the Lounge, when I enquired. Had not noticed at chec kin, as it was the first of a number of legs and the check in person was woefully inadequate and took forever to complete the formalities. All I wanted to do was escape his clutches.
My fault, you could say, for selecting 1A, with the possibility of having to move for someone needing a bassinet. Yes, I know the seats are not guaranteed, but why do those travelling with a baby get to choose on Departure Day if they need a specific seat. And what happens in these situations if there is no other J seat available for reallocation? There was no F on the flight.

Moving from a bassinet is not someone randomly reassigning seats.

It isn't done until the day of departure as (for some reason) they do not know how many bassinet positions there is a requirement for (I dont understand the why here as given they know all pax details surely they should know how many lap infants they have?)

In terms of whether there is a J seat available - there has to be - if they sell 56 J seats and someone with a baby has been allocated initially 16B they just put you in 16B and the baby in 1A.

 

[pagingjoan]

Agree, simongr, it is not random reassignment. I did acknowledge that in my post.
My issue related to the very late change and lack of advice - and I too am bemused as to why the number of bassinets required is not known until the last minute. And why could those wanting a bassinet not preselect anyway? I assume that if there are competing demands, it's done on a "first in, best dressed" basis?

 

[djfuzz]

Agree, simongr, it is not random reassignment. I did acknowledge that in my post.
My issue related to the very late change and lack of advice - and I too am bemused as to why the number of bassinets required is not known until the last minute. And why could those wanting a bassinet not preselect anyway? I assume that if there are competing demands, it's done on a "first in, best dressed" basis?

I completely agree about the annoyance that this is only done on the day - from both sides of the problem. However, my understanding is that much like everything else, bassinets are assigned based on priority - the younger the infant, the higher their priority for getting the bassinet.

As for why they can't be preselected earlier - I imagine that it's precisely because some eager person (such as ourselves ) has gone ahead an preallocated a bassinet seat despite not needing one, and once that's done the changes are handed over to airport control - who will make the change on the day, based on the priority of infant age (and of course whether the parents bother to remind them to do so as well).

When on my own, I've happily switched seats off my own bat from the J bassinet position where I've noticed parents who didn't get reassigned at the airport; have never been in the same position in Y, though that's why I make sure to avoid selecting those seats in general. On the other hand, when wearing the infant parental hat, I've always gently insisted on those seats at check-in if I couldn't preallocate (since that's what they're there for) and have always been kindly accommodated.

However, as simongr noted above, bassinet reallocation is not the same situation as described by JohnK (there being none on the 738 to begin with), so I can sympathise more with the original concern raised.

 

[pagingjoan]

Wonder if BossReggie is ever reassigned from 1A in favour of an infant?

 

[norby]

I've had my seat changed on QF many times - but usually to a better seat when the loads were light.

On DJ last week SYD - CBR my seat changed when I got my boarding pass. Interestingly, it remained the only empty seat on the plane when we boarded. What's more interesting is that the person in the seat next to it was Deborah Hutton (who I thought was a Qantas girl, but maybe after she got kicked off the welcome videos...) Maybe she just wanted more space?

 

[LiamR]

I'm comming up on my 200th flight in the last twelve months with Virgin next week. I've only once had my seating assignment changed and kicked out of Row 3, and that was during the Qantas grounding.

Was I angry? A little bit. But I burst into laughter when I thought what would happen if I flew Qantas that day.

25min wait for baggage you say JohnK? Last time I flew QF into Melbourne, it was 45mins. I flew into MEL with 16 bags last Wednesday and they were going around the carousel by the time I got there.

As for the meal service taking "forever and a day", I would be careful to not confuse the words 'different' , 'bad' and 'LCC'- Qantas and Virgin operate in very different ways. I find even on short 90min flights that the crew can serve everybody quickly.

 

[Ewing]

25min wait for baggage you say JohnK? Last time I flew QF into Melbourne, it was 45mins. I flew into MEL with 16 bags last Wednesday and they were going around the carousel by the time I got there.

I will not check bags when flying to MEL on any airline, and anyone who travels with me is under strict instructions to do the same if they want to use my lounge privileges or share my transportation into the city.

It's the only airport I've travelled to where the wait for bags has been longer than the time between take-off and landing on the flight I've just arrived on.

One day it might improve (it has been a number of years since I've checked a bag when flying to MEL).

 

[djfuzz]

Wonder if BossReggie is ever reassigned from 1A in favour of an infant?

Interestingly, the infant position on the 767 is more commonly on the JK side.

 

[LiamR]

I will not check bags when flying to MEL on any airline, and anyone who travels with me is under strict instructions to do the same if they want to use my lounge privileges or share my transportation into the city.

It's the only airport I've travelled to where the wait for bags has been longer than the time between take-off and landing on the flight I've just arrived on.

One day it might improve (it has been a number of years since I've checked a bag when flying to MEL).

Completely agree, MEL baggage seems horribly slow. However, on my last two flights into MEL with baggage, they have been on time. It's not a large enough sample for me to think it's been fixed, I'd say I've just been lucky.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

I flew into MEL with 16 bags last Wednesday and they were going around the carousel by the time I got there.

16 bags as checked luggage! :shock: :shock: :shock:

No wonder the Gold Coast turfed you out. No self respecting GC bogan would check 16 bags.............they'd carry 'em onboard and shove 'em all in the overheads!

 

[JohnK]

I don't recall having it happen to me (on any airline), and I'd be raising a customer service query looking for an answer fairly promptly if it did happen to me. JohnK, have you contacted the Platinum desk to find a reason for why this occurred?

Have not had a chance to contact Platinum desk or send them feedback.

Regardless of what others may think this is simply not good enough.

JohnK, I appreciate you bringing up my personal favourite.....the ife. I haven't had an opportunity to whine about that for uhmm, at least 24 hours. Well done, but do you realise those "wankers" with their iPads will become the norm if DJ don't retrofit seat back options??

I only recline on short haul when I have space behind me (which was why I asked about the ATR rear seat.....I thought it may be a nice change). Personally, I can see no reason for people to recline into someones lap on a 1 hour flight.

Point taken. The guy was a wanker because he reclined into someone's lap on a short flight and just happened to have some sort of personal IFE!

 

[flyingfan]

Of my roughly 100 QF flights so far (nothing compared to real frequent flyers, I am just giving the sample size), I almost always sat in the seat I pre-allocated and there would be very few if any exceptions[SUP]1[/SUP]. But there was one exception I do remember. I was with a couple of others who rarely fly so being a bit of a treat to travel for them I used my WP status to carefully choose something like 24 A/B/D for us during pre-allocation and confirming again during OLCI at T-24 so we could have the 'private cabin.' I printed our boarding passes at the kiosk and didn't really look at them until in the aerobridge about to show them to the FA, at which point I discovered we had been moved to something like 27 D/E/F. (Lucky I didn't head to the seats I thought we had as that would have ended in embarrassment.) I understand shuffles are necessary, #firstworldproblems etc but I was annoyed that all my choosing and rechoosing at T-24 had gone astray on a very rare occasion I was travelling in company. I sent in feedback and got an "apologies" response but the body of the email was blank, as though they had begun to type something but mistakenly fired off the unfilled template :shock:

I have had ~ four DJ flights as a non-Velocity member and ten as a matched platinum, none of which[SUP]1[/SUP] moved me out of my pre-allocated seat. I'm automatically given 3A which is my favourite Y seat anyway so unlike QF I don't have to try to do better after booking, at T-80, T-24 etc.

So far, I am always in the seat that I have pre-selected, so no need to move. Maybe there is a problem, and hence the consistency in this question being asked during check-in? Doesn’t anyone else get asked?

Once on DJ I made a late booking and instead of 3A I was pre-allocated 4A, which was fine. At the SYD Lounge Premium Entry I was offered 3C. I was told it was the most forward aisle seat but I'd rather have a window and sit a couple of a feet back so stayed in 4A.


[SUP]1[/SUP] excluding op-ups

 

[JohnK]

I think the issue is being balanced and reasonable about what is said. Case in point from this thread, neither airline guarantees a pre-selected seat but VA should remove it as a benefit? :?: That's unreasonable!

Balanced? Is that how it looks from your end? :confused

Again this is not a VA thing only. So I just don't understand your point. Is it really only VA that has to fix slow luggage at SYD? How slow is your luggage with QF in SYD? Last time I had checked luggage into SYD it took ~25 minutes.

My original point, which is now lost, was being moved out of my pre-allocated for no good reason.

Then people started comparing experiences and I mentioned my 3 very minor issues on VA in 3 days

- Lack of service when wanting to purchase a drink on Friday night
- Amongst other things luggage took ~25 minutes to come out
- Losing my pre-allocated seat for no good reason

I am not comparing VA to QF but simply commenting on my 3 very minor issues on VA in 3 days and the most important of the 3 very minor issues is losing my pre-allocated seat. Guaranteed or not on any airline it is simply not good enough....

 

[777]

simply not good enough....

Got it. Perhaps you should take you business elsewhere?

 

[jb01]

I recently had my pre-assigned 8C on ADL-PER changed to a somewhere up the back window seat. Didn't think too much of it, just assumed a full flight and I was quite late checking in so assumed more status PAX had taken my pre-allocation.

Then asked the lounge angel who upon looking in the system saw I had been allocated both seats; one up the front; the other down the back.
Funny thing is the seat down the back also had me listed as an infant.....

After a bit of "ooo I'm not sure how that could happen" she had it sorted and handed me my correct boarding pass for pre-allocated seat.

 

[serfty]

Got it. Perhaps you should take you business elsewhere?

Really??!!

The actual reality is that DJ are trying to attract business from regular flyers - the status match is one way of doing so.

With travel and some things happen - comments like that are in denial of this.

There is a culture change happening at DJ and education for the DJ staff is ongoing. They do need feed back on things like this no matter how expressed. Especially from those such as the OP who fly more than 60 domestic segments a year.

Whether such criticism comes in the form of conservative northern European stoicism, laid back antipodean "I just had to mention it, but she'll be right" or excitable Mediterranean hyperbowl it does not matter. It needs to be taken on board and utilised. Just telling a status matched WP who has an issue to take business elsewhere is not what it's all about.