Unable to allocate seat on Continental flight

Hi all,

I am off to the US for work at the end of January and as usual have tried to reserve non-crummy seats for the trip. For some reason the Continental website won't let me reserve a seat on the DUB-Newark segment, but for the onward connection and the two return flights I have selected seats.

When I try to reserve any of the free seats on the outbound flight it tells me it is unable to do so and that an agent will assign a seat on check-in. From the details presented, the flight is not full.

Does anyone know why I can't reserve the seat ?

There are two primary possibilities I have come up with so far :
1) I am a frequent flyer and they are going to upgrade me when I get to check-in
2) The ticket basis I have is so crummy that it doesn't entitle me to reserve a seat on this segment

Somehow I imagine that #2 is the likely one, since if it was #1 they would let me reserve a seat and then upgrade me anyway.

Has anyone had this experience (can't reserve a seat on an otherwise normal fare) before ?

z

Hi Zag
There answer is probably 1 of 2 possibilities.
1. As you suspect the fare type you have booked might be one of the lowest they offer and a restriction on the lowest fares can sometime be that you are not allowed to pre alloate a seat.
2. The airline allow a certain number of seats to be preallocated by the reservation system. Once these have been allocated the remainder are held for the day of the flight so the check in staff can allocate them. It could simply be that all the pre allocated seats are gone.

I wouldn't hold out much hope of an upgrade with Continental. They use very small planes on the DUB-EWR route with a tiny business class section that is usually full. Advice would be to check in as early as possible and hope for the best. You would often have a better chance of a good seat when flying alone. I had the same problem last year and could not reserve a seat either. Had a gold frequent flyer card and still could not get an exit row. Think Row 8 is the first row in economy and the best row to be in.

If you booked this over the website then you should be able to select your seat. however if this was booked through an agent then there may be some complication.
I would call Continental and they should be able to allocate your seat over the phone, especially if you are a frequent flyer.

It could be something to do with the extra info they require for pax on flights into the US?

I had the same problem booking flights for Feb, three of us going and it wouldn't let us pick seats however seats were allocated together anyway, which is all we were really bothered about.

Just got on to the Continental phoneline (always seem to be answered within 5 seconds in my experience) and the person on the other end was at least able to allocate me a seat for the moment. I know I would get one anyway, but it just keeps me happy to know I have a particular one - it's the simple things in life that do this. There were only middle seats available (aargh) but she said to call back 2 days before the flight when they will have released the 'premium' seats at the front and windows. These ones are reserved for really frequent flyers so they can get a good seat at short notice.

I'll give it a go on that morning and see if something good comes my way.

z