Cathay Pacific seat selection process [emoji35] (FYI + question)

[craftyone]

Booked most recent flight via American Airlines, which included my final 2 flights into Hong Kong and then BKK with Cathay Pacific.

 

This was a first/last for me with CP.

 

I’ve flown to Thailand over the years with many airlines that utilize partners for travel into Asia and onward to Thailand with a seamless booking/seating process. And I’ve flown as much or more all over the flipping globe for work in similar situations with no problems.

And in every situation I was allowed to select an available seat with every flight coming or going to Thailand or various work destinations.

 

BUT NOT WITH CATHAY PACIFIC.

 

You either have to pay to select your seat or you “wait” until 48 hours until checkin for seat selection.

Neither of these options worked out due to the ineptitude of their customer service process, the online site or the colossal crapapp they have available for download. Was left stranded/ignored during 2 live chats and “disconnected” during 2 calls to customer service. And, no, I was seriously in no way being a dik.....they just couldn’t/wouldn’t answer my questions.

 

I’m 6’5”, so this is fairly important to me regarding the 13-15 hour flights.

 

So I guess my question/concern now is ***what other airlines to avoid that basically extort $$ just to get a decent seat or their booking process is so thwarted its impossible to expect a decent outcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[kkerry]

1 hour ago, craftyone said:

You either have to pay to select your seat or you “wait” until 48 hours until checkin for seat selection.

 

Not only Cathay Pacific, quite a few other airlines have the 48 hour process. If you're experiencing difficulties try with the airline app rather than the airline website. 

[poohy]

Yep more airlines doing this now

Actually 48 hours is generous Just flew back with Lufthansa only 23 prior there

[tifino]

this would be that simple, widely used, money making 'tall passenger needs the specific long legged seat at the Emergency door' type of thing

 

What airline doesn't charge passengers more, for those special seats?

[craftyone]

I tried the app after it was suggested first. No luck. Then I called for an agent and they said, “you have to wait until you check-in with the airline (American Airlines) you booked with first.
So now I wait another 24 hours because AA (like most airlines) only allows checkin at the 24hr window.
Still didn’t work.
This is when most of my hang-ups and chat disconnects happened.
Called AA because, well, they’re the ones I’m paying.
So they say, “You can select the seats after you check in at the airport”.
Next day I check into the airport and nope, didn’t happen. I couldn’t even get my boarding passes for my CP flights. Even the AA counter agents were confused but as usual didn’t really give 2 shats once I was done asking questions.
Finally get to LAX and hour before departure on 1st CP flight and these morons wouldn’t even issue me a boarding pass onto BKK without interrogating me re my planned stay!!
I was the first in line once the agent showed up to the gate and I wasn’t about to budge until they gave me the final boarding pass.
Took her supervisor about 60 seconds to give it to me after the realized how seriously p!ssed I was.

And yeah, window seat the whole.....damn....trip!! Lol

[craftyone]

this would be that simple, widely used, money making 'tall passenger needs the specific long legged seat at the Emergency door' type of thing
 
What airline doesn't charge passengers more, for those special seats?

And I was ready and willing to shell out a reasonable amount for the 15hour leg of that trip......but I couldn’t even do that. That option was also unavailable via app or online and their agents couldn’t even do anything about it.

Ironically I was placed in a 3 seater row with the 2 tallest foreigners I could see for 30+ rows.
Thankfully they were traveling together and the “get ups” were well coordinated between the 3 of us but the row in front of us was not happy to say the least.
I mean, seriously, our knees were planted into their seat backs before they even reclined!! Lol

[tifino]

... and for one self... it's been years since any passenger directly in front of me, has had the chnace to be able to recline their seat down onto me either!  - have to grin and bear the game...

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, craftyone said:

So I guess my question/concern now is ***what other airlines to avoid that basically extort $$ just to get a decent seat or their booking process is so thwarted its impossible to expect a decent outcome.

 

As a fellow tall person, EVA Air used to be very good about the seating issue, in that you could advise them when making a reservation that you are tall and want to request an emergency exit row seat in economy. And over many years of flying with them, they'd put in a request to the ground staff in advance and it was almost always honored with no grief or problem when checking in.

 

Then in the past year or two, they changed that policy to where no more complimentary exit row assignments, and they started assigning those seats ONLY if you paid a surcharge for them PER flight segment. I wanna say it was like $80 extra per segment. So for a two-segment roundtrip between the U.S. and Thailand, keeping the exit row seat all the way would add $320 or so in total costs.

 

Under the new policy, a couple of times, when checking in I'd ask if the exit row seats had already been purchased or were still available. And just before takeoff, they were still available. And even at that point, the only way the EVA Air ground staff would allocate those seats was with the payment of the extra fee.

 

 

[craftyone]

 
As a fellow tall person, EVA Air used to be very good about the seating issue, in that you could advise them when making a reservation that you are tall and want to request an emergency exit row seat in economy. And over many years of flying with them, they'd put in a request to the ground staff in advance and it was almost always honored with no grief or problem when checking in.
 
Then in the past year or two, they changed that policy to where no more complimentary exit row assignments, and they started assigning those seats ONLY if you paid a surcharge for them PER flight segment. I wanna say it was like $80 extra per segment. So for a two-segment roundtrip between the U.S. and Thailand, keeping the exit row seat all the way would add $320 or so in total costs.
 
Under the new policy, a couple of times, when checking in I'd ask if the exit row seats had already been purchased or were still available. And just before takeoff, they were still available. And even at that point, the only way the EVA Air ground staff would allocate those seats was with the payment of the extra fee.
 
 

Thanks, I’ll def consider EVA next trip if my usual United/ANA isn’t available.

I guess it could be worse.
My relief offshore for a couple of years was too big to helo in/out so he had to take the crewboat (8 hours in GOOD seas) until they could find him a rig closer to shore.

[Orangutan]

I went directly to the CP ticket office in Bangkok, purchased tickets for my family, and picked the seats to HK, and then returning to Bangkok .. no problem.

[Samuel Smith]

Recent flight to UK with Cathay, booked on line.  Online booking mentioned having to pay to prebook seats, but after confirming the flight details, took me to choose seats pages & no charge.  Remember this is the airline that sold first class ( or was it business class) seats at crazy cheap prices by mistake a few months ago ????

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, craftyone said:

Thanks, I’ll def consider EVA next trip if my usual United/ANA isn’t available.

 

Do the United / ANA combo have anything in economy for tall people?

 

My only experience with them has been poor/diffident service on international routes with United, and smallish, cramped seats in economy with ANA (for a tall person, that is....)

 

[55Jay]

This year, was going to fly on Eva Premium Eco because the price was slightly lower than Cathay's.  Discovered they charge extra to select seats when making the booking.  For me and the wife, 4 sectors each, the cost of seat selection made the total cost the same as Cathay Pacific.

 

Wound up booking regular Economy on Asiana.  Payment with US credit cards wasn't working for me so did it through Expedia.  Was able to select seats at no additional cost.  Got the smaller Economy cabin up on the 2nd deck, hopefully that'll be ok, not too many screaming babies. 

[craftyone]

Recent flight to UK with Cathay, booked on line.  Online booking mentioned having to pay to prebook seats, but after confirming the flight details, took me to choose seats pages & no charge.  Remember this is the airline that sold first class ( or was it business class) seats at crazy cheap prices by mistake a few months ago [emoji1]

Yes, I def remember this and it was admittedly one of the reasons I tried them out.
Can’t find the link to the video but there was one that went viral about a guy that sat alone in the entire cabin in n one trip.
Was def not any flight going to Hong Kong though. Lol

[craftyone]

 
Do the United / ANA combo have anything in economy for tall people?
 
My only experience with them has been poor/diffident service on international routes with United, and smallish, cramped seats in economy with ANA (for a tall person, that is....)
 

That’s pretty much spot on.
I try to book exit rows on ANA into BKK and Econ+ on my Houston-Narita.
I’ve gotten lucky more often than I expected on the ANA flights lately getting to take a nap in an empty middle row though.

[craftyone]

I went directly to the CP ticket office in Bangkok, purchased tickets for my family, and picked the seats to HK, and then returning to Bangkok .. no problem.

Yeah, I think the whole partner booking situation with AA complicated matters as well.

If I could go straight CP outta Houston-BKK at the same price as United/ANA I’d be all over it but for some reason that route was way higher this time.

Being high season def didn’t help this trip either.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, craftyone said:

That’s pretty much spot on.
I try to book exit rows on ANA into BKK and Econ+ on my Houston-Narita.
I’ve gotten lucky more often than I expected on the ANA flights lately getting to take a nap in an empty middle row though.

 

 

I dunno if it's the same on other airlines beyond EVA.... But on all the international EVA flights I've had over the years, which mostly have been on their 777s, all the emergency exit row and bulkhead rows (the middle section inbetween the emergency exit rows on either side) always have fixed armrests that cannot be raised or removed.

 

Thus, no possibility to lay down in the emergency exit or bulkhead rows, even if no one is sitting there at all (which would be a rare occurrence anyway on EVA flights between the U.S. and Thailand, since they're almost always pretty full).

 

[Langsuan Man]

I can join the OP in a one and only CA flight.  I did not have his problems booking a Premium Economy seat but the one I did book bore no relation to the diagram I picked it from

 

I learned long ago, not to sit too near the lavatory since you will be woken up all night.   Turns out Premium was only in the price since the seat was no larger than a non premium seat and was wedged in between the lavatory and the bulk head.  I wish CP was better because I like the short hop to Bangkok from HK, versus the 3.5 hour slog from Taipei

 

But since I have to change planes in LA, I won't use them anymore and am stuck with EVA.  Who, I might add have raised their prices (8%) for the upcoming season but have eliminated the minimum stay requirements they used to enforce.  So if you want to stay over 6 months at your final destination you are fine,  but you will pay for it with the new fare structure 

[gk10002000]

I always had that problem with EVA or China Air when I flew coach.  Several times I was able to pick a seat, but then at the gate they re-assigned me!  My last 6 trips or so were with EVA flying premium elite and that allowed me to choose my seat and that never changed.  If you are 6 ' 5" I highly recommend you spring for the extra bucks for that class of seat

[craftyone]

I wish CP was better because I like the short hop to Bangkok from HK, versus the 3.5 hour slog from Taipei

Same here after utilizing the UA/ANA 5 hour run from Narita for many years.

Thanks for the heads up on China Air as they are/were on my list for upcoming trips!