Booked cheap flights for myself and the wife on Qantas to Singapore through Expedia Brazil. To choose the seats, they charge $25.00 per person per sector which will cost $100.00 for both of us for the return flights. Is there any way around this like not pay at all or at a reduced fare? Your help will be much appreciated.
Seat allocation on Qantas International flights
tendliya on 24/03/2013 - 14:13
Comments
Agreed. Wait until you check in 24hr before flight. Besides am surprised that QFF charges for seat alloc now. But anyway since u fly in pair, one will have the middle seat .. (I hate that seat).
The flight we will be flying has rows of 2 + 4 + 2 seats. So we were planning to secure the 2 seats on the side.
If you are Qantas Silver (or above), or have bought Qantas Club Membership, you get free seat allocation.
So by not paying the money, chances are all the good seats will have already been taken :(Unfortunately, I am only a bronze member. So, I guess I will spend the extra dollars to get the seats we want. Thanks.
I was on a flight where a grandmother was separated from her young adult daughter with an infant and a toddler. The women sitting near the nanna had refused to trade places with the daughter and the 2 young ones. The toddler was ballistic. I was sitting next to the young adult mum. I immediately offered to trade with the nanna. I sat next to some extremely smelly people, but the FA was so grateful that I got special cocktail service the whole flight. That little girl was so distraught that I felt she could be a danger to herself insofaras undoing her seat belt.
I would risk not sitting together, even with my 10 year daughter to avoid $100 fee. Something will be worked out if we get separated. I would not pay $100. (She likes flying alone anyway.)
Thanks for sharing the experience. I guess it is worth it to spend to get the seats we want rather than ending up in 2 different areas of the flight. My wife is also a bit picky with the seats and she dont want to sit in the middle seats.
I think if you two are in the same booking, they won't separate you. You just don't have the choice of your preferred seating. I travelled with my son just 3 weeks ago and we were assigned seats next to each other. If you prefer not to pay, remember to checkin exactly 24 hours before the flight and you may be able to change to other still available seats.
umm, why does it matter, all of the seats arrive at the destination at the same time…..
Not sure what you meant there but when you are on holiday, even the flight time counts to have a good time.
Usually you'd want to sit next to your family/friends if they're on the same plane as you… Especially on long flights (who wants to sit next to some random person instead of someone you can talk to and be less bored?)
Most airlines change for preselecting seating. I think if you choose an exit row it is around $80 but worth it for tall people :)
I am not sure if all the airlines charge for seats. I dont think Singapore airlines, cathay pacific charge for their seats. Its a pity that Qantas, the national carrier charges for seats on the international flights.
Are you talking about standard international seats or international exit row seats?
Almost all carriers charge for International exit row seats.
Qantas doesn't charge to choose a standard seat for everyone, only non frequent flyers, and bronze frequent flyers.
I didnt mean the exit row seats. I meant for the standard seat.
They dont and neither does Qantas, its for advanced seat reservation.
Purchasing preferred seats is easy and convenient. You can either make your purchase when you make your flight booking on singaporeair.com or anytime before check-in (48 hours before flight departure). Simply retrieve your bookings on singaporeair.com to make your selection.
These seats are available for advance and guaranteed selection, for a fee of USD 50 per sector, on all Singapore Airlines flights…..
Qantas seat cost = $25AU vs Singapore $50US
Thanks for the clarification.
The seats SQ are referring to are "preferred seats" which means exit row/extra legroom. Standard seats are free. Well worth $50 though in my opinion.
http://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/plan-and-book/optional-ser…Paid Preferred Seats
Preferred Seats are seats with more legroom in Economy Class. During seat selection, customer may choose to purchase a preferred seat at a fee of USD 50. For more details, please refer to the webpage on Economy Class Preferred Seats.
Yes looks like you are correct. Sorry my misreading the details from another section on their website.
Have travelled by Singapore Airlines quite a few times with family (2A + 2C). Never had to pay to choose our seats.
Im not sure if things have changed in the last 14 months with International travel where seat allocation is concerned. Last time i flew international was in December 2011 and it was on Thai Airways.
I've always been doing on-line check-in:
a. Most of the time you get the seats you want.
b. Most check-in counters have a separate queue for passengers who've checked-in online. This queue is always shorter than the regular queue.Whenever possible I get to the airport fairly early and request an exit row seat (i think some airlines charge for these seats now); These seats have more leg room and you you get go in and out without inconveniencing passengers sitting next to you.
I'm pretty sure Qantas charges $160 for exit row seats on international flights
Maybe not if you take your chances and ask when you get to the airport. If it is a full flight, someone has to sit there, regardless of whether they paid extra or not.
It's improbable but not impossible. Safety regulations stipulate that there must be at least one person sitting in each exit row so if they didn't sell any they would need to offer them for free. Normally these seats get given to their higher tier frequent flyers before the check in opens but if you were lucky and arrived early you could get one.
I'm 6,7" and I never pay for emergency row. But to get in you usually have to get there really early. Or else the short people start to request them.
not on wide bodied international aircraft where the cabin crew are responsible
I was first to check in (~2 hours early) for an international flight and got offered exit row for free. Didn't even need to ask.
what airline?
spending $100 on flights that you bought cheap is against OzBargain spirit!!
If you 2 are booked in the same booking, they usually will put you 2 sitting together.
Whether you get the 2 in middle or side depends on your luck.
Try check-in 23rd hours 59th minute before your departure and see what seats they have allocated to you.Better spend the $100 on upgrade on hotel, luxury dinner, or shopping at Singapore!
Its only 7 hours and a bit so it is not end of world if sitting in middle or whatever seats.Booking flights direct with Singapore Airlines may have let you reserve the seats directly.
spending that money is definitely not in the ozbargain spirit but travelling with the wife and she doesn't want to separately.
if you arent looking for specific seats and purely just want to sit together
give Qantas a call now and ask them to link you 2 together, and advise them to put a request for you 2 to sit together.
I have booked my parents on separate tickets before on Qantas flights and they checked in without issues and were sit together.Thanks. Great. I will give them a call now and see how it goes.
I've booked a lot with budget carriers which all require you to pay to pre-select seating, and in my experience they have always put the two of us together despite not having pre-selected seating. The only difference might have been that we were placed far more towards the back of the plane than if we had pre-selected our seats.
Having said that, I thought it was Qantas' international flights policy to open seat selection 24 hours before the flight (this happened to me 12 months ago on a flight back from LA). Here, everyone gets an equal opportunity to select their seats free of charge. Alternatively, you can wait till the check-in counter at the airport and choose your seats then.
Please keep in mind that your booking agency may chuck a dodgy and have bought you "cheaper tickets", ie tickets with crappy pre-selected seats in advance, as an incentive for you to pre-select your seats. When this happens, you won't be allowed to select ANY seats except for two pre-selected ones that are split up and right up the back of the plane. This causes huge confusion when you check in online, and when you check in at the counter - as no one can seem to move you anywhere but those two crappy pre-selected seats (even though the rest of the plane could well be empty). This happened to me on the aforementioned Qantas flight back from LA. I had to ask the guy at the boarding gate to move the mrs and I together.
I'm personally happy to sit anywhere so I wouldn't pay extra but I have been seated away from my children on an air Asia flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur so you cannot rely on being seated together. In my case it was ok, they are good kids and pretty frequent travellers but they were only 6 and 9 at the time.
My mate and I paid for the seat allocation and when we got there to check in, the worker said she gave our seats to someone else and gave us random seats no where near each other.
We brought up the point of paying extra money was to guarantee our seat which she declined. We didn't want to cause a ruckus just in case our bags got "misplaced" or ended up in another country.
I did write an email but got a generic template stating that all seats aren't guaranteed which still surprised me as to why they make us pay extra money for preferred seating allocation.
Thats very bizarre. I don't think you should let it go until you get the money back for the seats you paid for.
Depending on what time you arrived at desk to check in, towards the end of check in it's very limited what staff are able to manipulate if close to full flight.
You should try Singapore Airlines next time, get to pick your own seats in advance for free (except exit row seats). They block out some rows until 24 hours prior to departure, but you can always change seats again until 2 hours before departure. And you still get to claim the $40 transit voucher at Changi airport lol
But anyway you should be fine selecting your seats 24 hours before your departure time on your QF flight.
My preferred airline is Singapore airlines but I got Melbourne - Singapore return ticket for $450.00 per person using the Expedia Brazil website. I don't think I could have gotten that offer on Singapore airlines.
I dont get it.
If you want particular seats, ie 11A+B for the view of the Coathanger, or to be close to the dunnie. then yes, pay the money.
But, of the 300 odd seats on the plane, I doubt everyone but you has "paid" for an allocated seat. Even if 50% pay the money, that leaves 150 odd seats un-allocated. I doubt they would all be single seats.
So, get to the airport early for whats left, and most of the un-allocated seats will be next to an un-allocated seat. So at check in, ask for 2 seats together - which the counter clerk would do normally anyway, as they progressively fill the rest of the plane in a systematic way to avoid odd randomly placed single seats everywhere. Remember, the clerk is human, and gets a buzz out of helping people - they're in hospitality afterall. Its not a local bus trip.Once we turned up to the airport (2 of us), and waited for our 4 friend to arrive - they were held up.
Finally I went to the check-in and and said our friends were late, the clerk secured/reserved 6 seats, 11ABC + 12ABC so we could all be together and gave me 2 boarding passes.Our friends eventually turned up, and they went to the same clerk etc. Job done.
Pairs shouldnt be a problem, 3s and 5s are the problem.
But if you turn up last minute, theres a good chance they will split your up to fill the holes systematically.You are competing against a 60% load of statused members that select their seat free.
Having said that, if you're all on the same ticket you're very highly unlikely to be split up on Qantas, and on top of that generally speaking there really are no bad seats. Example being that some people want to be away from the toilets. I personally like to sit immediately in front of a toilet bulkhead so that I can recline whenever I feel like it, usually the entire flight between take off and landing.
There are good seats, but few truly "bad" seats.
Both of us are not on the same ticket. I will be flying to India from Singapore for some work while my wife returns to Melbourne from Singapore after the holiday. I had to book 2 separate tickets as our return dates are different.
Anyways, we will give it a go 24 hours before the flight and see how it goes.
BTW if you cant get two seats together. Try booking two aisle seats in the middle. That way when you get on the plane, the person who is sitting in the middle next to you will be most likely to swap with your partner in an aisle seat
eg.
ABC 0yxx xxx
ABC 0yxx xxxy swaps with 0 in the other row if you get what I mean.
Why centre? because you have two chances of swapping.
Why not side aisles, because many travel in pairs so AB could be paired so B while in the centre wouldn't want to swap. Where as y is more likely to be a lone traveler.Now yxx could be 3 traveling together, that's less likely and odds are even less that both you and your wife are next to two triples flying.
Plus many seem to like the side seats rather than centre seats
Hope that helps and you have an enjoyable trip.
Thanks for the tip. According to the seating plan on Qantas, the flight we are flying has 2 + 4 + 2 seats in one row and so that makes it slightly difficult.
Wow, I didn't realise Qantas charges $25 for economy seat selection (I fly in J, so seat selection is free). I've noticed that you've booked via Expedia? Your seat number should be displayed under your account and flight info, and if you're not happy or want another seat, just give them a call since they may be able to move you around (probably not to exit rows, but other seas you may want).
You cannot select your seat for International if you are booked through Expedia. You can only select your seat for the domestic flights if I am not wrong.
I'm unable to locate the English translation button on the expedia brazil site http://www.expedia.com.br/. Google translate doesn't give a full translation. Feel a bit silly to ask but how do you use this site if you don't understand the translation.
Its not silly to ask at all. I also didn't knew how to access the page in English but from the knowledge of Ozbargain, use Google Chrome to open the website and it will ask you if you want the page to be translated to English.
another silly question to ask, how did you know about cheap flights booking via Expedia Brazil!?!?
I would never thought about going to that site to book!! and how come its so cheap
how did you know about cheap flights booking via Expedia Brazil!?!?
Isn't that Expedia Ireland?
Expedia Brazil was even more cheaper than Expedia Ireland, at least for the Mel - singapore deal anyway.
The Expedia Brazil website is not in English and the price is not in AUD. Did you have to pay in Brazilian currency?
use Google Chrome to open the website and it will ask you if you want the page to be translated to English.
Yes, you have to pay in brazilian currency using a credit card but it works out to be wayy toooo cheap (in my experience it was close to $300 cheaper) than the qantas website
I agree. Very cheap flying Qantas to Singapore than buying it from Qantas.
As Matt_will_fix_it mentioned, Someone in OzBargain mentioned about Expedia Brazil and that's when I got my awesome deal. I scored the deal when Qantas was having the global sale and I am not sure if the deal is still available now. Also, it appears that it will work out quite cheaper only on selected destinations through the Expedia Brazil website. Good luck.
I bought cheap flights MEL-PER on Qantas, directly through the Qantas website. 44 hours before the flight, they emailed and we were together. I was then able to move up further towards the front.
I checked again at the airport and found that all the seats in front of us in the 4x middle aisle were full. Previously, there had been singles. When we took off, it appeared that these single middle seats had been blocked out by the system, because they were all empty.
If you don't want to pay, you can allocate your seating 24hrs before departure. First in best dress.