Extra Charge for Advance Seat Assignment

British Air charges too. I was disappointed to find this out!
It was a substantial cost.
I paid for my seats, only to have my flight cancelled. And guess what? The flight was refunded, but I was on the phone for hours trying to get the charge for the seat reservation refunded as well.

United doesn't charge

I booked a Delta flight for this summer last month and we did not have to pay for seat assignments for our economy seats. AND 3 out of 4 flights have a 2-3-2 contiguration, and we were able to get a 2 for each flight!

Roberto,

As always, I booked my Europe flights this year using a travel agent, and selected most of the seats for all my flights. I don't recall paying anything extra for seat selection, but perhaps the fees were buried in the total somewhere? This is the policy for seat selection on Air Canada flights....

http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/traveller/seatselection/

A clarification about Delta since I tend to fly on it the most - Delta charges if you want to move into Economy Plus, but they doesn't charge for seat reservations. The cost you're paying for Economy Plus is for the extra few inches of leg room & some minor upgrades.

British Air has been doing this for some time (several years, I believe), and Air Berlin does it too. Here's a thread about Lufthansa doing this, from September 2014: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/transportation/extra-fee-for-choosing-seats-on-international-flight

BA assigns you a seat but you don't know which seat until you sign in at the 24 hour mark. You can pay to pick one before them, or some tickets let you pick at 7 days. I have always waited for the 24 hour mark and had no problem changing all seats with my traveling partner(s) and/or getting aisle seats (my preference). If you need a bulkhead seat or want an exit row, it might be a different story, but exit seats are often available on flight. ...And I never get stuck in a middle seat/window seat or near the bathroom… BA is my favorite airline, so I might be slightly prejudiced, but this is my experience after many flights with them.

Actually I only started considering BA after they started allowing you to pay for seats and get them. I just add that cost in when I decide which airline.

I think I agree with Jean. But by the time the transaction was completed I was brain dead. We just bought Delta round trip Columbus to Paris the other day. The problem arose when we tried to get the extra legroom seats, for which we were prepared to pay a premium ( we'd done that before and liked it ). On Delta, as far as I know, it is no longer called Economy Plus but is now Comfort Plus. On Air France it is Seat Plus. The trouble was that I could never see the actual availability or cost of the upgrade on the Delta website. Phoned Delta, spoke with several people, followed many directions to click here and there,and was eventually told that no, I could not see that info, they could not see that info, and why not just buy the tickets and then try to add the upgrade? Um, no thanks. It had to do with owned and operated by X vs codeshare with X or some such air-speak. It literally took 3 1/2 hours on the phone with Delta, Air France and eventually the winning Joint Venture rep before it got figured out. That last rep...bless you, Leslie... heard the exasperation in my voice, made all the arrangements and waived the fee normally charged for phone purchase. The seat assignments we did make for the domestic legs still have not appeared on the receipt so who knows. But we're on our way! ?

We booked with United last Fall and when we tried to choose seats, they told us that Lufthansa was the airline that was flying some of the trip and that we couldn't make seating assignments online for the Lufthansa leg of the trip. But I don't think they were charging for seating as of yet, just no choice. Also they didn't have Economy Plus type seating but were expecting to start that this year. Delta and United domestically still allow seat assignments for free (at least so far, we have purchased tickets in the last month). But it's probably coming!!

Delta doesn't charge for seat assignments. Discouraging experience you had trying to buy Plus comfort for your reservation. With Delta I've always had the option presented either before or after the purchase. But I always check the flight first to see if Plus is available. If I don't see my option I call Delta and someone helps me. I wonder was your flight a codeshare, AirFrance/Delta, and who had ticket control?

Diane, I don't recall ever having this much trouble before. Thankfully, it seems to have been resolved over the phone. I too wonder who controls the ticket but am moving on for now with other planning issues. I'll tackle this one again when my fortitude has been restored...as it is, I poured the last of my fortitude about 2 hours into the ordeal. Safe travels!

Air Canada charges for domestic at the lowest fare structure. It's ridiculous to charge when one of the passengers is a minor. Is Air Canada going to act in loco parentis for the duration of the flight? Does anyone want someone else's kid next to them? Is it really going to cut into their profits to allow free seat selection for minors and their accompanying adults? Wouldn't everyone be happier if the parents were there to keep the kids in line?

Our next trip is on Air Canada travelling internationally at the second lowest fare structure. We were able to select seats. My daughter confirmed with ,e tonight that we are sitting together. The last trip where our seats were initially rows apart is still fresh in her mind! I also confirmed that we are on the last remaining 2-4-2 configurations and will not have someone next to us. Boo to Boeing. Sorry to see the Airbus go.

We flew Lufthansa Philly to London and Amsterdam to Philly last month, both through Frankfurt. We had purchased the tickets ast August. We did not buy seats. Four days prior to flying out, I noticed many more seats were now available. I idd my online checkin ASAP, actually for our 5:45 PM departure I went in at about 4:30, which was actually before it should have opened, their site says 23 hours ahead. Surprise, it checked me in. And assigned seats. As we were so early, we were assigned bulkhead seats on the long flight, and most of the way to the front on the short one. The return flight was similar, just not quite as far up. Lots of choices.

My guess is that most of the economy cabin is NOT purchasing seats in advance, and you can do well checking in online as early as possible.

We have gone back to flying United, I tried to book on Virgin Allantic last year ended up canceling with in the 24 hrs because they would not even let us choose until 30 days a head. Between that and them all constantly striking I am done with the foreign airlines.

I booked my Air Canada flight thru air miles and was able to select my seat in advance - thru AC website - for no extra charge for this Sept (from Halifax to Montreal, Mtl to CDG and from LHR back to Halifax were all no fee).

My mom is flying over via Air Transat and if she wants to choose a seat ahead of time, it's $30.

But other times with AC (flying roundtrip to LHR) I didn't book until the 24 hr window (because I had to sit apart from my husband one time coming home)...I'm not sure why sometimes I preselected for free and other times not...it could be that I didn't realize at the time that I could preselect for no fee...I honestly can't rem if I did check or not...it was 2012. One time I was able to choose my seats while on the phone with the air miles rep, this year, they told me I couldn't select my seats thru them...policies change I guess...

Roberto and Claire,
Good to know this info about United and Lufthansa. We won't be going to Europe until May 2016 but are already checking on what type of flights are available through United/Lufthansa. If we book through United I know we can't choose our seats on the Lufthansa flights but only United and vice versa. Now if we book through Lufthansa we should be able to choose our seats or not? We're looking at flight from Chicago to Venice through Frankfurt and then Barcelona to Chicago through Frankfurt. Of the 4 flights, only one of them is United (Chicago to Frankfurt) the other 3 are on Lufthansa. Are we better off making the reservation through Lufthansa than United? We have United Mileage Plus so we would get more miles purchasing through United. But if it gets us seats on the 3 Lufthansa flights, that would probably be to our advantage to book through Lufthansa. Sounds like we would have to pay the fee no matter what? Not very good news!

Ruth,

For flights within Europe, even when they are booked as part of a transatlantic ticket, you get your seat assignment at check in and not before. They're short flights, so the middle seat isn't such a problem. So, you only ones you have to worry are between Frankfurt and Chicago.

One tip is to get both the United and the Lufthansa booking numbers for your ticket (you sometimes have to call to get this). With these, you can access both reservation systems, and can choose your seat as soon as they let you. If seat selection is important to you, you may have to pay a fee to select in advance - just part of the cost of travel in our "modern" world.

When you make that connection in Frankfurt you will have your Lufthasa flight, we just did this for four people and we had good seats for the short flight to Rome. Those were on our United boarding pass. I have never had a problem having seats on the Lufthansa connection, lufthansa does a good job with seating asignments. They just won't give out seats on those Europe comuter type flight.

I flew Air France to Paris last month. There may have been an option to pay for seat assignment in advance, but I don't remember it. On both flights, as soon as online check-in opened up, they automatically checked me in and assigned me a seat. I wanted to change the seat (there were better ones yet unassigned) and had to cancel their automatic check in and redo it myself. It was annoying, especially since there was some lag in the system updating until I got my new boarding pass.

I also learned the hard way to check my seating assignment when I check in for the flight - it's happened that the airline changed my seat without notifying me.

If Lufthansa makes our seat assignments, just would hope they put husband and I together. Have heard some people have been separated. If I'm traveling with my husband I want to sit with him. Two isle seats across would be ok, have done that before. We may use miles for the flights or parts, so not sure if that makes any difference.

I just checked my upcoming flights booked on Lufthansa. Flying from Tel Aviv into Vienna on their subsidiary, Tyrolean, advanced seating is not permitted. Flying back from Frankfurt on Lufthansa, $15 to choose a seat.