I'd like to share something I learned today. For seat selection, i had to go to a different airline's website.
I found a great fare NY-Paris round trip via Finnair. During the booking process I didn't see a way to select my seats, so after completing my booking I did a live chat. I was told if the flight operator is a different airline, you have to select your seat through that airline.
Sure enough, although I paid Finnair and have their booking reference, there's also a booking reference for American Airlines, which is the flight operator. (If I had bought my tickets from American, they would have cost more.)
I went to the American Airlines website and used my American Airlines booking reference. I was able to select my seats. There was a choice between no-extra-charge selections and other seats that would cost extra.
Just wanted to pass this along in case others don't know about this.
Posted by
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA
16657 posts
I'm glad you were able to select your seats!
I've had this come up when booking on Delta and then having a European onward flight on either Air France or KLM. I've had mixed results on picking a seat...sometimes I can, but there are times when I have not been able to for whatever computer interface reason.
Posted by
Ontario, Canada
6985 posts
Apparently you have just experienced the joys of code sharing. Becoming more and more common as airline alliances grow.
Posted by
OP
3146 posts
Yes, code sharing. One good thing, besides getting to select my seat, was the opportunity to enter my American Airlines frequent flyer number. I had skipped that step when I purchased on Finnair because I wasn't sure if Finnair would partner with American for the FF program, and I didn't want to mess up the transaction.
Posted by
Freedonia
18514 posts
Sometimes the booking airline can do it for you.
A few years ago I booked a round trip ticket to Japan. I booked through AA but the return was on JAL.
I called AA to get my JAL locater so I could book seats. The AA agent said she could book them for me. And she did.
Posted by
Snohomish, WA
3760 posts
We have done this quite a few times. We just ran into a snafu that I am still sorting out though. My husband's name is the second, which is always a pain to deal with. We booked on Alaska to go to Iceland. The flight to Iceland is on Alaska Air, but the return flight is on Iceland Air. Alaska gave us the confirmation number for Iceland Air, so I tried to book his seat, but could not find his reservation. After calls to both airlines, apparently the "II" is the issue and while Alaska has it, it doesn't translate to the Iceland Air and it was left off of that part of the reservation. So not wanting to take a chance of his being denied boarding as the name would not match his passport, I am back to calling, asking for supervisors this time. It will get sorted out, but good thing I caught this now.