Seat selection for a non-partner airline?

I am having this same problem - only I can’t get Air Canada to find the reservation for a seat assignment. It keeps saying I bought through a third party - well, I guess you could call United a third party….. United and Lufthansa - no problem. I am probably going to have to resort to a phone call. The chat function doesn’t work.

None of that helps you, but you may need to call Air Canada. You should have had a PNR for Qantas.

The key is typically the PNR, also known by various airline-specific nicknames like "confirmation code" or "booking reference" or something similar. It's almost always a 6-dight alphanumeric string like XYZ123. The airline that booked your ticket will have this number, you need to get it from them. Note that the airline you booked the ticket with will have their own PNR for your flight, which is usually different from the PNR the operating airline will use. In any case, you can (and should) get the PNRs for your flight (both of them - the booking airline's PRN and the operating airline's PNR). Get those from the booking airline, note both numbers and have it handy anytime you are dealing with any airline involved with your trip.

In most cases, each airline can only "use" their own PNR to access your flight record, so make sure you have both. Occasionally, multiple airlines will use the same PNR for your flight - just 2 weeks ago I flew from Bergen, Norway to Seattle, USA. The flight was booked by Air Canada; the first leg of the flight (from Bergen to Frankfurt) was on Lufthansa, the subsequent legs (Frankfurt to Vancouver to Seattle) were flown on Air Canada. Tickets were issued by Air Canada and the Air Canada PNR was also used by Lufthansa for their leg of the trip. This is fairly unusual IME for multiple airlines to be able to use a PNR issued by a different airline.

In any case, whenever there's more than one airline involved in your flights, be sure you get the airline-specific PNR for every airline involved. Sometimes the airline you booked with make it easy and displays it on their website (United does this and makes it easy to find). Often, you need to call the airline that booked your ticket and ask them for the partner airline's PNR. Do that right after you've booked your flights (in some cases the partner airline's PNR is available right away, sometimes it can take 24 hours to get the partner airline's PNR). In all cases, have the PNR for all the airlines involved.

Once you have the airline-specific PNR, you can usually plug that in on the operating airline's web page and access things like flight details, seat selection (depends on what kind of ticket you bought and system limitations), and more. Look for something like "Manage my booking" on their website (typically it requires you to enter the PNR and your surname). Without that airline's PNR, you can't do much of anything, so get it and keep it handy while you are traveling.

Thanks for the replies. Problem has been resolved. I made a mistake in entering the original PNR provided by AC - I can access the Qantas site now for seat selection.

@TexasTravelMom - hope your issue can get resolved soon! I would think there's no reason why you should be having issues since United and Air Canada are partner airlines. Were you provided with an alternate booking code for AC?

The AC PNR actually might be my problem as well. I do not have one for them. What has thrown me off is that I can access the flights on Air Canada’s site using the UA PNR, but can’t do seat reservation (or anything else - just see it). That will be my next plan of action.

United is very good at displaying all the partner PNRs. You shouldn't have to call them - just pull up your detailed rez online and you should be able to see the other PNRs - you can then use this code on the partner's website and you should be able to pull up the rez. Most of the partners will want to charge for seat assignments unless you are willing to wait for the 24 hr or so window when online checkin opens up.

You are right, Arnold, but alas, in this case, there are only the UA and LH PNRs. AC operates the first 2 flights and no AC PNR. Makes me think I need to check to be sure it is actually booked (different experience with this on One World partners for Oct).

@TTM - I would just give Air Canada and/or United a call and ask them for your PNR. It's possible they both (Air Canada and United) may be using the same PNR, but you should confirm that so there's no misunderstanding or ambiguity (note my recent experience, detailed above). In any case it should be trivial for either airline to give you their own PNR. The booking airline should be able to give you both of them.

I'll share another recent glitch with Air Canada that caused me some headaches and frustration: Last November, I booked return flights from Europe to Seattle via Air Canada. My flights are not on Air Canada aircraft - they're actually on Turkish Airlines, flying home from Budapest to Seattle (with a stop in Istanbul); both flights are on Turkish Airlines (TK) aircraft. Business class tickets, booked with Air Canada points (I found a great deal). I already had both the Air Canada PNR and the Turkish Airlines PRN. But I was unable to select or even view seats for these flights, neither on the Air Canada website nor on Turkish Airlines' website. I had called both airlines multiple times, each airline just pointed fingers at the other airline, told me they were powerless to select seats or even see what my automatically-selected seats might be, they all just said call the other guys. I was given various brief descriptions of what the root cause of the problem was but it was always "we can't do anything about this, call the other guys." Last week I tried again, sharing my frustration with the Turkish Airlines agent. This time she got more specific: she told me that she could see my booking record but it was "locked" by Air Canada, furthermore she said there appeared to be a problem with how the Air Canada booking looked - she said there was a "contact info" field that was supposed to contain my phone number and email address. She said she could see my phone and email but those had been added to the bookings "notes" field, they actually should have been in the "contact info" field, and with the "contact info" field blank, the Turkish Airlines system could not open it. She said only Air Canada could correct those issues, so I had to call them.

I called Air Canada back and repeated what the TK agent told me. The AC agent then said, yes, my account had been locked for security, to unlock it I would need to reset my password. We did that, I gave the AC agent my phone and email contact info, she entered it. I logged out of the AC website then logged back in. Suddenly I could see my seats on the flights! I called Turkish Airlines back, the agent was then able to select my seats. Everything fixed, everything now functional as one would expect.

So...just sharing that strange recent experience. In your case, I'd just give them a call (Air Canada and United), ask for their help, get things squared away. Providing a PNR should be quick and easy. Good luck.

Good luck.

Interesting side note, since we all seem to be having issues with Air Canada bookings in one way or another. Today, I noticed in My Bookings on the AC site that there was a big "disruption" notice for my flight in Sept to Barcelona/return from Venice. I clicked on it, and there was an issue with my return flight from VCE and that I was to contact customer service.

So I did, and it turns out my worst fears about having to change/rebook were completely unnecessary. The agent explained that there was a notification of a time change for departure (5 minutes) back in April, but that earlier this month, it had reverted back to the original time (I didn't receive that notification). I still don't understand why I had to call in for such a minor issue but once they confirmed it, I logged in again and the "flight disruption notice" was gone. Weird, but I'm relieved.

Thanks, David! I am already convinced that sometimes the computers don’t talk to each other - this is a further step in no communication. I will start with a call to United.

I had an AY flight cancelled a couple of weeks ago (Bud-Hel). It just disappeared. No longer listed on the AA site (where I booked). And I realized I hadn’t gotten an AY PNR. Finn Air still showed that flight as an option, so I called AA but she couldn’t see one at all from her end either, and there are usually a couple each day. So I went back to Google Flights (which of course takes me to the AA website), booked the whole itinerary again, then called AA to confirm she could see it. And this time I had an AY PNR. It was all fine and the agent cancelled my first booking for a full refund and I now have all the flights I wanted again. My theory is that the codeshare didn’t go through and after a certain amount of time, the computer dropped that flight from my itinerary. But it was strange.

When we book on one airline's site say United but flying on Turkish, I always make sure to get the ticket numbers in addition to any confirmation code(s). Helps sort things out when there is a glitch.