Flight Ease Seating Assignments

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Next May will be our first experience with Flight Ease. The prices were good, but we were not able to get seat assignments for a couple legs. The outbound flights are United operated by Lufthansa, San Diego to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Rome. Flight Ease said they couldn't pull these seats. We're flying home on Swiss and United and were able to get those seats.

 

They told me that as it gets closer they might be able to get the seats. Is this normal for them? And, of course, if we cough up the money I'm sure we'd get them.

 

Thanks!

 

[kazu]

27 minutes ago, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz said:

Next May will be our first experience with Flight Ease. The prices were good, but we were not able to get seat assignments for a couple legs. The outbound flights are United operated by Lufthansa, San Diego to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Rome. Flight Ease said they couldn't pull these seats. We're flying home on Swiss and United and were able to get those seats.

 

They told me that as it gets closer they might be able to get the seats. Is this normal for them? And, of course, if we cough up the money I'm sure we'd get them.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Flight ease should be able to give you your booking reference numbers for the Lufthansa flight(s).

 

Once you have those go to the Lufthansa site and choose manage my bookings and you may be able to choose seats.  Some airlines don’t let you until you are ticketed.  If that’s the case, you will have to wait until your flights are paid for and then ask Flight Ease to get you ticketed.  In most cases, I’ve been able to choose seats but I had one where I had to ask Flight Ease to get it ticketed.  If I had waited until the normal time I would have been gone already.  LOL

 

There should be a booking number for your Lufthansa flights on your flight ease confirmation.

 

Hope this makes sense and helps.

[DougK]

Some airlines, particularly European ones, don't allow free seat assignments until checkin. Lufthansa is one of those airlines, so the only way you can get your seats now is to pay for them. It has nothing to do with the fact you booked through Flight Ease.

[CruiserBruce]

Agree with DougK. I don't think Lufthansa does advanced seat choice for coach seats, internationally or domestically.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Just checked....Lufthansa won't assign them for coach or business. It's always been my experience that seats are only locked in when ticketed. I was surprised that Swiss Air gave me them through Flight Ease. It just seemed weird that Flight Ease could provide seat for two of the legs but not all four. Not a big deal as we have the seats. And the pricing is really good. The tickets we reserved a month ago are 1k more today.

Thanks to all for responding. I appreciate the help.

[wyobean]

We got sears on our flight but we wanted to upgrade. It was worth it to go ahead and pay for the flights so we could do that. The opportunity may not exist if we wait for final payment to pay for them. We like to make some payments as we go along anyway.

[CruiserBruce]

5 hours ago, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz said:

Just checked....Lufthansa won't assign them for coach or business. It's always been my experience that seats are only locked in when ticketed. I was surprised that Swiss Air gave me them through Flight Ease. It just seemed weird that Flight Ease could provide seat for two of the legs but not all four. Not a big deal as we have the seats. And the pricing is really good. The tickets we reserved a month ago are 1k more today.

Thanks to all for responding. I appreciate the help.

It's not Flight Ease's issue, it is the airline policy. If Lufthansa doesn't give them out, Flight Ease can't do anything about it.

[msmayor]

We used FlightEase for our recent Eurodam cruise.  The flights were booked back in March when we booked the cruise, but not ticketed until final payment.

 

Outbound flights were on AirCanada - we had to wait until ticketed at final payment to access the seat maps and then, had to pay for seat assignments.  We were booked on American for the inbound flights and able to get seat assignments immediately with the locator number, even though the tickets were not yet issued.

[mrmoviezombie]

You can opt to pay for the flights ahead of final payment. This usually unblocks those airlines that don't allow seat assignments.

 

On our last cruise, because we wanted to pay for specific seats on a Lufthansa flight, we did this. That got us the airline locator that we could then use to pay for the seats on the Lufthansa web site.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Thanks everyone for your help. An update...I was talking to HAL about cancellation insurance and mentioned the seat assignment question. They transferred me to another department. I think they called it the "air specialists" or something like that. This person reviewed the flights, requested Lufthansa seat assignments and got them. She didn't know why it worked and said it's just a hit and miss system. While we were on the phone I checked the Lufthansa website and our flight did indeed show those seats were now assigned. So it seems to be one of those things about travel where hard and fast rules don't apply, or they do until you double check and talk to someone else.

Thanks again!

[Kfrech]

I am new to HAL and just stumbled upon this thread. We are sailing to Alaska in June, RT out of Vancouver (flying in from Pittsburgh).

 

Airline prices (Air Canada) seem pretty high--but than again, maybe not. We flew RT out of Pittsburgh to Calgary a few years ago and I remember experiencing some sticker shock.

 

Can someone tell me the benefit of using Flight Ease? I'm really not seeing any airfare that's any cheaper than booking directly through Air Canada.

[Taters]

4 minutes ago, Kfrech said:

I am new to HAL and just stumbled upon this thread. We are sailing to Alaska in June, RT out of Vancouver (flying in from Pittsburgh).

 

Airline prices (Air Canada) seem pretty high--but than again, maybe not. We flew RT out of Pittsburgh to Calgary a few years ago and I remember experiencing some sticker shock.

 

Can someone tell me the benefit of using Flight Ease? I'm really not seeing any airfare that's any cheaper than booking directly through Air Canada.

Sometimes you can get excellent deals through Flight Ease.  Sometimes not so much.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

The benefit I see is that you can lock up the tickets for months without paying anything. Airlines would never do that. We made reservations a month ago and won’t pay a cent, on the airfare, until February. And the price was very competitive. We did pay a refundable deposit in the cruise. 

[Kfrech]

I also have a fully refundable deposit until March.

 

Are you able to cancel the airfare portion through Flight Ease if you find better airfare on your own (prior to your final payment date?)

[ghstudio]

One problem you can run into using Flight Ease.  We are gold on American, so we can normally select preferred seats at booking.  When you book through Flight Aware and payment to the airline is delayed until final payment, you can request seats through FlightAware...but only standard seats not preferred seats.  Your reservation shows on American's site, but as not  yet ticketed, so their system won't allow you to change seats.  The AA folks can't change your seats either because it's not ticketed...and they tell you contact your TA.  flightaware doesn't know how to change seats to "preferred seating"....they can only request the seats they show you...the basic seats.    If you try often enough, you may find someone who will help...but don't count on it.

[Vineyard View]

We booked Business Class a while ago via FlightEase RT SFO/VCE for May travel. We were assigned seats on all four legs which include UA first and then Lufthansa so I believe code share. I double checked with our TA that we are in fact assigned seats on all four legs and not just UA after i looked via our locater number. When i went this route, the Lufthansa flights did not show specific seats. She called both UA and Lufthansa and both airlines confirmed the specific seats. We are not scheduled to pay until February along with remainder of cruise. In reading this, do I need to have concern. Not trying to hijack this  thread but it is a similar situation with UA flight initially and then Lufthansa code share - or is it as mentioned no set of rules here and different itineraries could have different outcomes?

Edited November 12, 2019 by Vineyard View

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

This is almost exactly our situation. We have business class San Diego to Rome outbound and from Zurich on the return. (spending some time in Switzerland after the cruise)

 

I spoke to a HAL Personal Cruise Consultant today and she confirmed that we have the outbound seat assignments. It's through United but operated by Lufthansa. She told me that if we were in Economy there would be a very good chance of our seats being changed by the airline. She said Business and First were handled differently and would probably not change. This is because there are fewer seats for the airlines to play with in the those classes, according to her.

 

We were ready to pay for the air to secure the seats but were told it would make no difference. I guess this is just a quirk of Flight Ease and booking air through a cruise line. We've traveled extensively internationally, booking directly with the airline, and have always gotten the seat assigned during the ticketing process. Maybe a bit of uncertainty is the price you pay for securing the airfare without putting up any money.