Vigilance Pays!

[Lightning Bug]

Thanks to all the wonderful posters on these river cruising threads! Your tips saved me a headache!

 

My DH and I just received our travel docs from Viking for our October 19th sailing. While reviewing the flight info, I decided to double-check the seating assignments for the "long stretch" of our flights (Atlanta-Amsterdam and Amsterdam-Minneapolis). And I'm sure glad I did... someone had changed our seats for the Amsterdam-Minneapolis leg! Our two Delta-comfort seats together (H&J, window and aisle) had been switched to separate seats (C&G, each end of the middle-four row). Same comfort-class, but only in waving distance on each end of the middle... yuck! We promptly corrected this, and you know I'll be watching those seat assignments until we leave!

[Valley Girl of VA]

Glad you double checked and had time to get it corrected. Hope you have a great trip!

 

Jaen

[Hydrokitty]

Thanks to all the wonderful posters on these river cruising threads! Your tips saved me a headache!

 

My DH and I just received our travel docs from Viking for our October 19th sailing. While reviewing the flight info, I decided to double-check the seating assignments for the "long stretch" of our flights (Atlanta-Amsterdam and Amsterdam-Minneapolis). And I'm sure glad I did... someone had changed our seats for the Amsterdam-Minneapolis leg! Our two Delta-comfort seats together (H&J, window and aisle) had been switched to separate seats (C&G, each end of the middle-four row). Same comfort-class, but only in waving distance on each end of the middle... yuck! We promptly corrected this, and you know I'll be watching those seat assignments until we leave!

 

You said it all in your post title.....vigilance pays!!!! Good for you....:D

[JVilleGal]

Good for you!

[rjscott]

Good catch! That happened to us on our last T/A flight. We had paid for Economy Comfort seats A & B, and they switched the plane to a 747 so put us in what they thought were "comparable" seats, being window & aisle, but that meant there was someone b/t us. At least, like you, I had time to go in and change us to seats together.

 

Becki

[Hydrokitty]

Good catch! That happened to us on our last T/A flight. We had paid for Economy Comfort seats A & B, and they switched the plane to a 747 so put us in what they thought were "comparable" seats, being window & aisle, but that meant there was someone b/t us. At least, like you, I had time to go in and change us to seats together.

 

Becki

 

One thing I've learned to have a successful trip: read everything, even the small print, and pay attention to the details well before your departure date. Many of these mistakes are easy fixes IF there's enough time.

[JVilleGal]

Too true!

[NavyVeteran]

This was probably not Viking's fault. It was probably the airline that made the change.

 

If I book through a cruise line, I always check seat assignments directly with the airline as soon as I receive the airline booking number. As you discovered, it's always a good idea to recheck the air booking - on the airline's website - several times as you prepare for the cruise.

[Lightning Bug]

Agree completely, NavyVeteran! I don't blame Viking at all; this was Delta. And you folks are right... check early, check often to be sure things are right!

[Rebel54]

I would keep checking routinely until you depart. We are flying AA and BA when we travel and I know that BA has a habit of changing seats for "Operational Reasons."

[NavyVeteran]

I just followed my own advice and rechecked my itineraries from Viking on United and Lufthansa for October and November this year.

 

My seat assignments are still good. However, United changed the flight number of one of the flights - same aircraft type, same times, but different flight number.

 

Also you need to check the website of each airline separately. Viking purchased my tickets from United for United going and Lufthansa returning. United has the complete itinerary on their website. However, United does not have the correct seat assignments for Lufthansa. The itinerary from Lufthansa has seat has the correct seat assignments that I arranged by telephone with Lufthansa.

[cherylakers]

Samr thing happened to us leaving from ATL to AMS. They changed the aircraft from an airbus to boeing. The seats they gave us were fine ,but it was a shock when i first checked. We leave 9/30.

 

Cheryl

[QueenofEverything]

I just followed my own advice and rechecked my itineraries from Viking on United and Lufthansa for October and November this year.

 

My seat assignments are still good. However, United changed the flight number of one of the flights - same aircraft type, same times, but different flight number.

 

Also you need to check the website of each airline separately. Viking purchased my tickets from United for United going and Lufthansa returning. United has the complete itinerary on their website. However, United does not have the correct seat assignments for Lufthansa. The itinerary from Lufthansa has seat has the correct seat assignments that I arranged by telephone with Lufthansa.

 

United changed the DATE of our flight to Amsterdam when we took our first river cruise. They had us going the next day! Good thing I am OCD when it comes to travelling. I noticed it before it was too late.

 

Check, recheck and check again!

[Hydrokitty]

United changed the DATE of our flight to Amsterdam when we took our first river cruise. They had us going the next day! Good thing I am OCD when it comes to travelling. I noticed it before it was too late.

 

Check, recheck and check again!

 

And yet people make fun of us control freaks!! :D

[JVilleGal]

And yet people make fun of us control freaks!! :D

 

 

Kinda funny isn't it! I'm bushed, time for a glass of [emoji485]

[banditoo]

Vigilance definitely pays off and sometimes can provide a few laughs rather than heartache or nightmare. On a trip we had earlier this year (non cruise) I had intermittently checked the flights I had booked a year in advance with an on line booking site. About a month before our trip, when I checked again on line on the airline website, one of the flight segments showed as missing. I had received no notification of any sort from the airline or the booking agent. When I called the agent, they told me our booking was all in order and couldn't provide any clear explanation as to why one leg was missing on line. I asked the agent to verbally tell me what each leg of the flight was including flight numbers and departure and arrival times. As I wrote the info down, I noticed that the missing leg times had changed from the original booking, resulting in that flight arriving an hour after our next connecting flight departed. :confused: I pointed this out to the agent who told me that it was fine as the 'system' would not allow a booking to have different legs that would not align. Eventually, the agent did understand that we could not possibly make the final connecting flight if we would still be in the air on the prior leg...unless they were going to provide us with parachutes and jumping lessons. :eek: So then the agent had to start from scratch with our flights to get us from point A to B...the suggested option was going to have what was already a 18 hour combination of flights, changing to almost 40 hours of flight time...not going to happen! :( Eventually the agent did come up with flights that would connect and have similar flying time to what our original booking was. :) Had I not 'accidentally' discovered the missing flight when checking in advance and then also questioned the agent on the specific flight times, we would have been on our trip only to discover that our flights no longer connected...I would have been pretty frustrated but instead was able to laugh at the sequence of events. My motto is to check and double check and pay attention to all the small print and details.

[rothbury]

Good luck Lightening Bug! Our flights were changed the morning of our departure from JFK to AMS. Too late to change a sold out flight and the excuse was an "equipment change". We contacted our T/A when we arrived on the boat. She assured us the return flight from AMS to ATL was still good. When we checked in at Basel we mentioned the seating problem to the ticket agent. His response was to take back our boarding passes and re-assign us seats saying, "Oh, you want to sit together". Basically, I will never fly Delta again. If it means no more river cruises. So be it. I won't deal with that again! Sorry to sound so negative.

[Hydrokitty]

Good luck Lightening Bug! Our flights were changed the morning of our departure from JFK to AMS. Too late to change a sold out flight and the excuse was an "equipment change". We contacted our T/A when we arrived on the boat. She assured us the return flight from AMS to ATL was still good. When we checked in at Basel we mentioned the seating problem to the ticket agent. His response was to take back our boarding passes and re-assign us seats saying, "Oh, you want to sit together". Basically, I will never fly Delta again. If it means no more river cruises. So be it. I won't deal with that again! Sorry to sound so negative.

 

Don't know which company you were cruising with, but we just came back from Amsterdam to Basel with Vantage. Our flights were booked with Delta (despite Vantage knowing I do NOT like to fly Delta) and when I checked to see why, discovered that most likely it was that Delta had non-stop JFK to Amsterdam and we were booked on KLM for the return from Basel, so I let it stand. Know what? Even Delta business class was terrible! So here's my advice to you: notify your cruise company that you will not fly Delta and want to be booked on say Lufthansa (my fav) or KLM (my new fav). If it's Vantage and you're on your second trip with them, you may have to pay $100 extra, but if you're on your 3rd trip, it will be free. ...and then watch when your flights are posted and call them if you're not happy.:D

[Mark_T]

I will never fly Delta again. If it means no more river cruises. So be it. I won't deal with that again! Sorry to sound so negative.

 

I know this probably isn't helpful, but last minute equipment changes can happen on literally any airline.

 

The alternative to an equipment change is a cancelled flight.

 

You reduce the chances of an equipment change by flying with an airline with limited resources at your departure point, but you increase the chances of a cancellation.

 

The seat changes are due mostly to an attempt to honor specific preferences in your frequent flyer records (if you have one) or existing seat selections (window, aisle etc.), so you can reduce the chances of problems by making sure you both have compatible preferences (don't both have window or aisle for example) but in the end, it is an automated process so it can split up passengers traveling together, especially when the seat configurations are very different (2-5-2 changing to 3-4-3 for example).

 

Your best defense is to arrive at the airport early as even when the seat maps show as 'full' there are often seats held back for airport assignment so if you get there early enough you may still be able to sort it out before hte flight even with an apparently full flight.