How Does Online Check-in Work?

[erina143]

Flying to Vancouver on AC34 I was on their online checkin site as soon as it opened 24 hours before the flight.
Flying their Business Class I find my wife and I were allocated seats 4 rows apart and when I attempted to change that there were only 3 seats in a 42 seat business class section available. All other seats were "not available".

How do the other seats get taken when checkin is only just opened? Is it agents making pre-checkin requests or something similar? And as the booking has been in their system since December and we are both on one booking, surely an initial allocation should have been done with us sitting together.

My wife is already not happy with the herringbone arrangement on the AC 777-200LR and with us 4 rows a part I can see some pointed questions being asked tomorrow morning at the counter. Cant say I blame her - when you spend big $$ for business class you expect to at least sit together.

 

[aliens]

Flying to Vancouver on AC34 I was on their online checkin site as soon as it opened 24 hours before the flight.
Flying their Business Class I find my wife and I were allocated seats 4 rows apart and when I attempted to change that there were only 3 seats in a 42 seat business class section available. All other seats were "not available".

How do the other seats get taken when checkin is only just opened? Is it agents making pre-checkin requests or something similar? And as the booking has been in their system since December and we are both on one booking, surely an initial allocation should have been done with us sitting together.

My wife is already not happy with the herringbone arrangement on the AC 777-200LR and with us 4 rows a part I can see some pointed questions being asked tomorrow morning at the counter. Cant say I blame her - when you spend big $$ for business class you expect to at least sit together.

Most people booking in for business would be silver, gold, platinum and have access to pre choose their seating which they would have done at time of booking. Perhaps after this business flight you will go up to silver? I agree you should be seated together. Have you tried ringing the airline?

 

[eric2011]

Flying to Vancouver on AC34 I was on their online checkin site as soon as it opened 24 hours before the flight.
Flying their Business Class I find my wife and I were allocated seats 4 rows apart and when I attempted to change that there were only 3 seats in a 42 seat business class section available. All other seats were "not available".

How do the other seats get taken when checkin is only just opened? Is it agents making pre-checkin requests or something similar? And as the booking has been in their system since December and we are both on one booking, surely an initial allocation should have been done with us sitting together.

My wife is already not happy with the herringbone arrangement on the AC 777-200LR and with us 4 rows a part I can see some pointed questions being asked tomorrow morning at the counter. Cant say I blame her - when you spend big $$ for business class you expect to at least sit together.

When you did your booking in December you would have been able to go to the Air Canada website, Manage your booking section and make your selection. This is the case, especially when travelling in J

 

[Denali]

I have flights for next April and seats already selected.

Where the tickets on the same booking? Last year we flew an airline and I had no status and phoned customer service to select seats together.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

While the earliest you can checkin for some airlines us 24 hours prior to depatrure, seat allocation can be done as soon as you book which could be as much as 12 months in advance.

This option would've been available to you when you booked back in December.

Most airlines automatically pre-allocate seats for their elite flyers according to their preference in their profile.

I did a booking for my parents on VA in J SYD/LAX/SYD & even 6 months prior to departure there were only a couple of pairs of seats available by the window which is what they wanted.

Did you make the booking yourself or through a travel agent?

 

[erina143]

We used an agent ( one of the bigger chains ) as we are doing the cruise / train thing in Canada. No mention at the time of booking of being able to pre-select seats.

I have rung the airline but the call centre was not a lot of use. I am going to the airport tonight and will see if I can discuss with counter staff then or we will be there early tomorrow to fix. I am sure we can convince one or two single business travellers to swap seats. From what I can see on Seatguru there is not really a bad seat in business on a 777-200.

14 hours of peace andquiet sounds good to me but teh wife is not in agreement.

 

[Denali]

Baring in mind, if the counter staff are able to move you, they risk upsetting another passenger who had already preselected their seats.

Considering the layout, I don't find herringbone easy to chat with your spouse whether he's next to me or the row adjacent so enjoy the quite time, I know my husband does.

Enjoy your trip!

 

[ozbeachbabe]

We used an agent ( one of the bigger chains ) as we are doing the cruise / train thing in Canada. No mention at the time of booking of being able to pre-select seats.

I have rung the airline but the call centre was not a lot of use. I am going to the airport tonight and will see if I can discuss with counter staff then or we will be there early tomorrow to fix. I am sure we can convince one or two single business travellers to swap seats. From what I can see on Seatguru there is not really a bad seat in business on a 777-200.

14 hours of peace andquiet sounds good to me but teh wife is not in agreement.

IMHO that's pretty poor on the TA's part as it's something they should have done for you without you even asking. It would've only taken them 30 seconds to do.

I doubt the AC call centre can do anything at this late stage as the flight would be under airport control by now.

Hopefully checkin can sort it out for you so you don't have to ask other passengers to swap aa they may have carefully chosen those seats for a reason or may be travelling with someone across the aisle.

Definitely approach the Cabin Manager on board before approaching any passenger directly about swapping.

I'd be giving your agent a rocket for not doing it as it's sheer laziness on their part.

 

[RooFlyer]

Flying to Vancouver on AC34 I was on their online checkin site as soon as it opened 24 hours before the flight.
Flying their Business Class I find my wife and I were allocated seats 4 rows apart and when I attempted to change that there were only 3 seats in a 42 seat business class section available. All other seats were "not available".

How do the other seats get taken when checkin is only just opened? Is it agents making pre-checkin requests or something similar? And as the booking has been in their system since December and we are both on one booking, surely an initial allocation should have been done with us sitting together.

My wife is already not happy with the herringbone arrangement on the AC 777-200LR and with us 4 rows a part I can see some pointed questions being asked tomorrow morning at the counter. Cant say I blame her - when you spend big $$ for business class you expect to at least sit together.

Air Canada has some unique aspects. If you have no status on Air Canada, then you are at the bottom of the food chain in business.

Its web site is pretty useless for 'manage my bookings' type stuff unless you booked the trip on-line at their web site. AC phone centre is equally useless - huge wait times unless you are Super Elite 100K status ( = P1 in QF parlance)

Unlike QF, they will fill their J cabin with upgrades, so they manage their seating pretty tightly. Free 'e-Ups' (-grades) are very popular (most people have a stock of them), and depending on your status, you can get a confirmed e-Up a week, 3 days or 1 day before. I think they keep seating for others 'flexible' until they see how many high status pax have e-Upped.

TAs can access the seating at any time (I have E50K status so that probably helps).

 

[erina143]

Checking staff were not able to do anything as the flight is full. I did manage to preselect for flight back in 3 weeks after learning here that I could. Thanks to all for the good replies. TA will get a rocket when we get back.
flight delayed 90 minutes so we are comfortable in Air NZ lounge and just chilling. Preferred lounge for AC is NZ as SQ won't give any announcements etc. as we are already delayed we need to know what's happening. This lounge is pretty good in my limited experience. Wifi is nice and fast.