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Seat Selection When Booking Thru Choice Air


Hyundaigirl
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Hi - a question for those of you who have previously used Choice Air. I'm one of those people who prefers to do just about everything myself on-line. So I went to book our flights on Air Canada to Rome for next September and found the exact flights I was looking for, was able to enter my FF number but when I went to book the seats I got a blank window that said if the seat maps weren't available to call the carrier. Seemed odd since Air Canada has the seat maps so I called Choice Air to see if they had access to the seat maps - but no they don't . If they have the ability to book on-line plus have a "seat selection" button why wouldn't they have access to the same info on the Carriers website. Anyway I went ahead and booked and it generated an Air Canada booking reference number. I thought great - I can now go onto the AC site and book my seats - no luck. It recognizes I booked the ticket elsewhere and wouldn't let me. Aargh!

 

Now I'm on an endless wait to talk to Air Canada - been 35 minutes already.....when I think I should have been able to do this all simply on the choice air website.

 

Any one else have any issues like this? At what point does Choice Air get seat maps? Or be able to book your seats for you? I don't think its unusual to book flights 9 months ahead.

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Odd, I booked a flight on United through Choice Air. They emailed me the flight info which includes "record locator". I typed that number into the United reservation spot and my reservation came right up. I found that Choice Air had already assigned us seats, but I was easily able to change them on the United site.

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Odd, I booked a flight on United through Choice Air. They emailed me the flight info which includes "record locator". I typed that number into the United reservation spot and my reservation came right up. I found that Choice Air had already assigned us seats, but I was easily able to change them on the United site.
Right. I've also been able to move from economy to economy plus seats for the standard charge every time I've tried if the flight was configured for economy plus.
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Hi - a question for those of you who have previously used Choice Air. I'm one of those people who prefers to do just about everything myself on-line. So I went to book our flights on Air Canada to Rome for next September and found the exact flights I was looking for, was able to enter my FF number but when I went to book the seats I got a blank window that said if the seat maps weren't available to call the carrier. Seemed odd since Air Canada has the seat maps so I called Choice Air to see if they had access to the seat maps - but no they don't . If they have the ability to book on-line plus have a "seat selection" button why wouldn't they have access to the same info on the Carriers website. Anyway I went ahead and booked and it generated an Air Canada booking reference number. I thought great - I can now go onto the AC site and book my seats - no luck. It recognizes I booked the ticket elsewhere and wouldn't let me. Aargh!

 

Now I'm on an endless wait to talk to Air Canada - been 35 minutes already.....when I think I should have been able to do this all simply on the choice air website.

 

Any one else have any issues like this? At what point does Choice Air get seat maps? Or be able to book your seats for you? I don't think its unusual to book flights 9 months ahead.

 

Having booked on Air Canada through Choice Air, you may find that they wish to charge you for a seat selection if you wish to do so 24 hours prior to your flight. That was also our experience recently with WestJet.

 

Although I was willing to believe, a year or so ago, that Choice Air did not use consolidator tickets, I'm not so certain now. For example, Westjet would not even let us access our reservation online before the 24 hour period in order to check in.

 

Please let us know how this situation is resolved.

 

Thanks

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I booked R/T flight to Venice with Choice Air. The outbound flights were Air France ticketed through Delta. Choice Air gave me both the Delta confirmation number and the Air France number. I was able to make seat changes on the Air France web site and was also able to give the cruise line's transfer people the correct flight number as the Delta one was mythical.

 

Have you called Choice Air and asked them if there are any other confirm numbers you don't know about?

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At the end of my online Choice Air booking I did receive an actual Air Canada booking reference number and I can see my reservation on the Air Canada website but I'm not able to select my seats online because I didn't book my ticket on aircanada.com. Obviously if you can do that on other airlines then it must be an air canada quirk.

 

The AC site does say I can call the reservation line if I want to select seats - which is what I'm doing now. I've been on hold for so long I just can't hang up now ...I have too much time invested in this call! It just makes me crazy that I can't do this on-line.

 

I had called Choice Air back and they claim the reason the seat selection isn't available is that its too far ahead and the aircraft could change. I don't believe that for a minute. I've booked flights with Air Canada far in advance many times and selected seats that never changed. If I had booked directly with the airline I could have selected seats no problem. So far not super impressed with the choice air experience.

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....and I am able to do somethings online with this reservation on the air canada site. I was able to add our passport info to the booking. They will also let me add travel insurance and a number of other add ons but they won't let me select a seat!!

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LOL so I can stop my whining now. I FINALLY got through to Air Canada after a 1 hour and 52 minute wait! NO kidding - it didn't help that they are predicting a major ice storm in our region and everyone must have been calling to change their flights. Anyway I finally got through and spoke to a very pleasant agent who booked my choice of seats and has emailed me my confirmation. Question - since we do pay Choice Air a fee, why can't they do that for you??

 

Reason I really wanted to get those seats selected today is that Air Canada is doing a 12 days of Christmas promotion and until tomorrow the promotion is a sale on premium economy. The premium economy cabin only has 18 seats and we definitely wanted to be able to get seats together. We do have to fly through Montreal from Toronto but the bottom line is we were able to book premium economy for only $200 more than the current price of an economy seat.

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We got our flights (for next September) through Choice Air because of the promotion a while back. I went on to Delta to switch to economy plus, but I had to wait 24 hours for the flights to be ticketed before I could change. So I don't know if it was the same 24-hours issue, or whether Air Canada does things differently.

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I booked with choice air about a month ago. First time using them. I like to book directly with the airline. The air credit from Azamara was too much to pass up. I booked with choice air on line. I was uncomfortable using the choice air website. I tried to call them without success.i booked on line. After I got my confirmation from choiceair, I called the airline to select seats. I then found out that I had already been assigned seats. I changed them without a problem. Choiceair needs to improve their website. Since Choiceair is part of RCL, I am not surprised that the website is not great. Celebity, azamara, and Royal Caribbean also have website problems

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Hi - I think its an Air Canada thing. Although it does look like they let you access a booking made through Kayak now.

 

It's definitely an Air Canada thing. I've flown them for years and seat selection has always been a problem when you book somewhere other than their website. You couldn't even select a seat online if you booked with them on the phone. They've made several improvements over the last few years, but still a long way to go. Especially considering, many other airlines do not have this issue.

 

We also booked a Choice Air booking for a cruise next July, and had to phone Air Canada to book our seats. Plus, we will need to watch the reservation, because if AC makes a schedule or aircraft change between now and then, we'll lose our seats and get to try again.

 

I know Choice Air could use some improvements to the website, but even then I'd bet that Air Canada would still be a problem. Their systems have serious limitations.

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I booked with choice air about a month ago. First time using them. I like to book directly with the airline. The air credit from Azamara was too much to pass up. I booked with choice air on line. I was uncomfortable using the choice air website. I tried to call them without success.i booked on line. After I got my confirmation from choiceair, I called the airline to select seats. I then found out that I had already been assigned seats. I changed them without a problem. Choiceair needs to improve their website. Since Choiceair is part of RCL, I am not surprised that the website is not great. Celebity, azamara, and Royal Caribbean also have website problems

 

Hi - you're like me. I want to be able to book my flights on-line directly with my choice of airline and select my seats at the same time. I don't even like using Expedia. I've been doing that for so long it makes me uncomfortable to pay for tickets and not have a seat assignment. Funny thing is that I called Choice Air twice. The first time when I realized I wasn't going to be able to make a seat selection - called to see if they could assign seats for me and they said they could not. In fact during that call the agent quoted me a fare that was over a $1000 more than the airlines current promotion. So I went ahead and booked on line - the website actually was showing the promotional fare, and then I called back to check again on seat selection. Thats when the 2nd agent told me the seat maps weren't out yet because it was too early. She claims to have called Air Canada but unless she had some special direct line number she would have been on hold forever on Saturday morning like I was. Its interesting that when I finally got through to Air Canada the agent there had no problem booking me a seat - in my case Choice Air had not assigned seats. And if I wanted to forego the cruise discount of $500 PP (not) I could also have just booked directly with AC and selected my seats on the spot.

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As I said before, ChoiceAir was not user friendly. The airfare that I wanted to buy was $25 per ticket higher than USAirways. ChoiceAir makes a bold statement of matching airfares if you book and find a lower fare within 24 hours. They say that you will get the difference in OBC. What they do not state boldly is that there is a fee for using Choice Air. It is buried in the very fine print. I paid $50 extra total for 2 tickets...and saved $1000 on my cruise fare. Without that incentive, I would not use ChoiceAir.

Friends of ours who wanted to fly first class found that ChoiceAir was extremely higher than the airline. They booked with the airline.

 

Everytime I travel, I explore many options for my air. Using Expedia, ChoiceAir, Orbitz, etc. may show you options that you might consider. Split tickets can be tricky. Multi-destination tickets are also a challenge. Taking the time to explore options can save you money.

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As I said before, ChoiceAir was not user friendly. The airfare that I wanted to buy was $25 per ticket higher than USAirways. ChoiceAir makes a bold statement of matching airfares if you book and find a lower fare within 24 hours. They say that you will get the difference in OBC. What they do not state boldly is that there is a fee for using Choice Air. It is buried in the very fine print. I paid $50 extra total for 2 tickets...and saved $1000 on my cruise fare. Without that incentive, I would not use ChoiceAir.

Friends of ours who wanted to fly first class found that ChoiceAir was extremely higher than the airline. They booked with the airline.

 

Everytime I travel, I explore many options for my air. Using Expedia, ChoiceAir, Orbitz, etc. may show you options that you might consider. Split tickets can be tricky. Multi-destination tickets are also a challenge. Taking the time to explore options can save you money.

 

Hi - for us it was also the savings on the cruise price. Otherwise I would also have booked my own flights.

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I believe it is a policy of Air Canada that you can not change seats, buy more leg room etc if your ticket was bought by a third party.

They stated they were changing this policy sometime in early 2013 but that did not happen as of yet.You can view your reservation and add passport info.

 

I find choice air very hard to work with, not very willing to secure seat assignments or help me purchase additional leg room seats. The last flights we booked with them I had my TA deal with choice air and Air Canada.

 

Also beware of the class ticket sold to you by choice air, we had a flight on Swiss Air that was a "K" class ticket and even thought Swiss Air is part of the Star Alliance with United they would not accept the miles for United Mileage Plus.

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I believe it is a policy of Air Canada that you can not change seats, buy more leg room etc if your ticket was bought by a third party.

They stated they were changing this policy sometime in early 2013 but that did not happen as of yet.You can view your reservation and add passport info.

 

I find choice air very hard to work with, not very willing to secure seat assignments or help me purchase additional leg room seats. The last flights we booked with them I had my TA deal with choice air and Air Canada.

 

Also beware of the class ticket sold to you by choice air, we had a flight on Swiss Air that was a "K" class ticket and even thought Swiss Air is part of the Star Alliance with United they would not accept the miles for United Mileage Plus.

 

Last spring, for a fee, we were able to upgrade to "Economy Plus" ( or whatever it was called) on Air Canada, although the tickets were purchased through Choice Air.

 

Perhaps, knowing Air Canada, it is a random policy. It may also be that the class of ticket may also vary markedly.

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