How close to departure time are Qantas flights usually booked?

[PR-Texas]

We're using Princess EZAir. Anyone know how close to departure the tickets for Qantas are booked?  We're currently 44 days until first flight. Cruise including airfare is paid in full.  I'd like to choose our seats but I'm getting the message that once the flight is booked I can check back to select our seats.

[FlyerTalker]

That is a Princess question, not one for Qantas.  Your reservation is "booked", but it is not "ticketed".  That happens when Princess has both paid Qantas AND has authorized the issuance of a ticket.

 

Talk with Princess to get this resolved.  Or at least answered.

 

 

[PR-Texas]

I’m really interested in what other folks have experienced. Not sure I’d get accurate info from Princess. 

[FlyerTalker]

27 minutes ago, PR-Texas said:

I’m really interested in what other folks have experienced. Not sure I’d get accurate info from Princess. 

 

What other folks have experienced has ZERO relevance to YOUR ticketing process.  And since you are buying your air through Princess, and since Princess is the one who is responsible for getting you ticketed, WHY would you not be getting the most accurate information from them?

 

Do you really think that the experience of someone else in the past holds more validity than information from the booking source?

 

If you have THAT little confidence in Princess, why are you traveling with them?

 

 

[SelectSys]

My speculation is that Princess is simply waiting for Qantas to simply assign you a seat at the last minute.  Why you might ask?  Money is the answer.  Typically, Qantas charges money for seats except if you have status on the airline or another Oneworld carrier.  Princess on the other hand simply buys the cheapest ticket possible.  As a result, the "Princess passengers" will get the last remaining seats that Qantas wasn't able to sell in advance.

 

Again, this is just 100% speculation and I have no idea what really how Princess Air seats are assigned and when.

[Globaliser]

9 hours ago, SelectSys said:

Typically, Qantas charges money for seats except if you have status on the airline or another Oneworld carrier.  Princess on the other hand simply buys the cheapest ticket possible.  As a result, the "Princess passengers" will get the last remaining seats that Qantas wasn't able to sell in advance.

 

No, that's not the way it works. When you buy a ticket to travel on an airline like Qantas, you do not have a ticket for a specific seat; it's not like buying a theatre ticket. That's the same whether you buy directly from Qantas or through an agent like Princess. If Qantas pre-allocates you a seat, that's basically a request (although if you have paid Qantas for that, there will be terms about whether/when/how you may get your money back if the request is not honoured). If you book through an agent like Princess and you can only request a seat on Qantas by paying for it, that would be an additional payment by you to Qantas. I don't think that Princess can save itself any money by not paying for a seat request for you.

 

The OP is describing something which (IME) seems typical of cruise lines. It may well be that Princess has reserved space on the Qantas flight for the OP (which means space for some seat, but not any particular seat, on the flight), but hasn't yet bought the ticket from Qantas, and Qantas won't accept a seat request until Princess actually buys the ticket (and Qantas has been paid for the ticket). Princess does have a financial reason for not actually buying the ticket until quite close to departure: it's taken the OP's money but hasn't yet had to pay it to Qantas, because it doesn't need to until it actually buys the ticket.

[SelectSys]

3 hours ago, Globaliser said:

When you buy a ticket to travel on an airline like Qantas, you do not have a ticket for a specific seat; it's not like buying a theatre ticket.

That much I did know.  A few stories have come out in the last couple of days regarding involuntary downgrades of passengers on United  due to aircraft maintenance/swap issues.

https://viewfromthewing.com/united-warns-london-passengers-nobody-boards-until-13-business-class-passengers-agree-to-endure-coach/

https://viewfromthewing.com/united-airlines-threatens-passengers-give-up-business-class-seats-to-flight-attendants-or-entire-flight-gets-kicked-off/

 

Fortunately, the airline systems are usually pretty good and my experience has been that seat assignments are likely to stick if the aircraft goes out as planned without any issues.  

 

3 hours ago, Globaliser said:

It may well be that Princess has reserved space on the Qantas flight for the OP (which means space for some seat, but not any particular seat, on the flight), but hasn't yet bought the ticket from Qantas, and Qantas won't accept a seat request until Princess actually buys the ticket

I really didn't know about payment timing and what you say regarding payment timing makes perfect business sense.  I read a bit more online and confirmed that "consolidators"  do indeed follow the practice you suggest.  They also mark up each ticket sold to customers in addition to earning on the payment timing - after all it's a business like any other.

 

I didn't see as much online regarding seat assignments.  If the airline doesn't permit seat assignments until Princess/consolidator gives them the money, the net effect of this would be to support my hypothesis that people flying via cruise supplied air get close to the bottom in terms of seat selection priority.  If I was the OP, I would call Princess and ask them to get me seats and if they couldn't, at least explain the process of getting them and when it occurs.  

 

Personally, I really don't like going to the airport and especially to the boarding gate without a seat assignment.  This seems just seems to put you at increased risk of of being denied boarding due to an oversold flight.

 

 

[Zach1213]

18 hours ago, PR-Texas said:

I’m really interested in what other folks have experienced. Not sure I’d get accurate info from Princess. 

I'll echo the previous statement...flights are important, and if you don't trust the "person" booking your flights, why are you using them? I don't like to put anyone in between me and my provider (airline, in this case), let alone one I don't think knows that they're talking about. 

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, SelectSys said:

If the airline doesn't permit seat assignments until Princess/consolidator gives them the money, the net effect of this would be to support my hypothesis that people flying via cruise supplied air get close to the bottom in terms of seat selection priority.

 

On airlines like Qantas that charge for seat pre-allocation, there are usually plenty of seats still available a month or so before departure, which is when cruise lines typically issue the ticket (and pay the airline). That is actually one of the reasons why they charge: to try to dissuade early bookers from hogging all the best seats, when the airline's most profitable customers are typically the ones who book really late (three weeks or less before departure).

 

1 hour ago, SelectSys said:

Personally, I really don't like going to the airport and especially to the boarding gate without a seat assignment.  This seems just seems to put you at increased risk of of being denied boarding due to an oversold flight.

 

But this is confusing two steps in the process.

 

Even if you don't have pre-allocated seats, online check-in is usually available, typically long before you set off for the airport, and during that process you should be able to get a seat allocation. And even if you can't at that stage, you're very unlikely to be able to go to the gate without a boarding pass, and you're very unlikely to have one of those without also having checked in and having a seat allocation.

 

If a flight is oversold (ie more passengers check in than the number of physical seats on board the aircraft), having a seat pre-allocation doesn't provide that much protection against being bumped. If that's the situation, it doesn't take a huge amount of button-pressing to make space for someone who's checking in at the airport by cancelling the seat pre-allocation of another passenger who hasn't yet checked in. After all, the second passenger hasn't bought a ticket for that particular seat, but has only made a request for it.

[PR-Texas]

After speaking to my CVP I called Qantas. Qantas assigns seats with your boarding pass 24 hours before departure UNLESS you pay for seat selection. We decided that $40 per seat per flight ($160) was worth it to be sure we could sit together and not be at the very back of the plane.

[SelectSys]

3 hours ago, Globaliser said:

But this is confusing two steps in the process.

It was an additional point to not wait and ensure you get a seat as early as you can.  I probably didn't state this very well, but my point was that one shouldn't wait and just assume that you'll get seats without being proactive.  I have forgotten to get seats a couple of time and discovered this upon entry at the airport.  I have also been sent to the gate without a seat assignment and needed to wait at the gate for a seat.

 

3 hours ago, Globaliser said:

If a flight is oversold (ie more passengers check in than the number of physical seats on board the aircraft), having a seat pre-allocation doesn't provide that much protection against being bumped

 

I didn't claim that it was a guarantee of boarding,  but I believe it's better to have an assignment than not to have one.  While many factors go into a decision as to who gets bumped, it's more likely the person with the boarding pass will get on the plane over someone without a boarding pass assuming the other factors for the two passengers are the same.   I just can't imagine that the airline would pull one person's seat assignment and give it to someone that doesn't have a seat assuming both were casual fliers on cheap tickets.  

 

3 hours ago, Globaliser said:

That is actually one of the reasons why they charge: to try to dissuade early bookers from hogging all the best seats,

Maybe that's one reason, but I would think that the airline's experience with JetStar and general investor expectations are such that Qantas wants the ancillary revenue more,  I was surprised to learn that Qantas (including all operating units) is #2 in terms of per passenger ancillary revenues.

https://simpleflying.com/airlines-receiving-most-ancillary-revenue-list/

 

If Qantas didn't care about the ancillary revenue, they could simply block seat assignments for those late passengers and achieve the same effect.

 

45 minutes ago, PR-Texas said:

After speaking to my CVP I called Qantas. Qantas assigns seats with your boarding pass 24 hours before departure UNLESS you pay for seat selection. We decided that $40 per seat per flight ($160) was worth it to be sure we could sit together and not be at the very back of the plane.

I am glad you were proactive and got this handled.  It looks like you have done everything you can do to have reasonable seat assignments for you and your traveling companions/family.

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, SelectSys said:

It was an additional point to not wait and ensure you get a seat as early as you can.  I probably didn't state this very well, but my point was that one shouldn't wait and just assume that you'll get seats without being proactive.

 

This is one of the things that online check-in is good for, if you don't already have a pre-allocated seat.

 

1 hour ago, SelectSys said:

I didn't claim that it was a guarantee of boarding,  but I believe it's better to have an assignment than not to have one.  While many factors go into a decision as to who gets bumped, it's more likely the person with the boarding pass will get on the plane over someone without a boarding pass assuming the other factors for the two passengers are the same.   I just can't imagine that the airline would pull one person's seat assignment and give it to someone that doesn't have a seat assuming both were casual fliers on cheap tickets.

 

Do you know all of this, or is it more of your speculation?

 

Some of us have spent decades living all these permutations. For example, the point that you had to read up online about consolidators and ticket issue is something I know because I have deliberately used the system to my personal advantage on many occasions.

[SelectSys]

4 hours ago, Globaliser said:

Do you know all of this, or is it more of your speculation?

 

Some of us have spent decades living all these permutations. For example, the point that you had to read up online about consolidators and ticket issue is something I know because I have deliberately used the system to my personal advantage on many occasions.

My point about seat assignments has nothing to do with consolidators.  It is the airlines rather than the consolidators that decide which passengers are downgraded or denied boarding or sit in a tiny middle seat between two people with no room to breathe. 

 

Common sense and my own observations traveling by air regularly suggests that having an assigned seat is better than not having one for a crowded flight that may be oversold.  The person with the seat assignment will most likely be free to board the plane and the person without an assignment will be at the gate waiting to see if the airline offers enough compensation to get someone to voluntarily not board or deplane.  I saw this exact situation play out last spring on a flight from PHL to LIS.  The flight was way oversold and a couple of passengers got left behind in PHL with a flight credit as not enough people were willing to give up their seats for those that lacked seat assignments.  Hopefully none of these people left behind had a pressing appointment such as a cruise embarkation the following day in Lisbon.

 

As an FYI - consolidators never really came into play for me as my business travel tended to be 90% US domestic and the vast majority of my and my family's leisure travel both domestic and international was funded by frequent flyer miles and hotel points.  Now that I have more schedule flexibility and fewer miles/points on account, I would consider consolidators such as cruise ship air in situations where I couldn't find a good deal from the airlines directly for cash or by using points/miles. 

 

 

[zdcatc12]

21 hours ago, SelectSys said:

I saw this exact situation play out last spring on a flight from PHL to LIS.  The flight was way oversold and a couple of passengers got left behind in PHL with a flight credit as not enough people were willing to give up their seats for those that lacked seat assignments.  Hopefully none of these people left behind had a pressing appointment such as a cruise embarkation the following day in Lisbon.

 

If this was an IDB scenario, which it sounds like if you are remembering it correctly, I guarantee you that they received a lot more than just a flight credit. Look up the compensation required on an IDB scenario. And if they are flying to LIS for a cruise and are leaving the day before, they are tempting fate regardless.

[Globaliser]

10 hours ago, zdcatc12 said:

If this was an IDB scenario, which it sounds like if you are remembering it correctly, I guarantee you that they received a lot more than just a flight credit. Look up the compensation required on an IDB scenario.

 

The OP wasn't likely to be at risk of this anyway. If they did have to wait until Princess issued the tickets and that happened a month out (which would be typical), there would almost certainly still be plenty of seats that they could pay Qantas for.

[megr1125]

On 9/24/2024 at 3:42 PM, PR-Texas said:

We're using Princess EZAir. Anyone know how close to departure the tickets for Qantas are booked?  We're currently 44 days until first flight. Cruise including airfare is paid in full.  I'd like to choose our seats but I'm getting the message that once the flight is booked I can check back to select our seats.

Unless you ask for early ticketing, generally Princess EZ Air tickets 45 days prior to departure so it may be ticketed now or in the very near future.