Unable to choose seats for Jamaica - any ideas?

I have been trying to preassign seats for my coming VH to Jamaica in October but keep getting:

VS065, London (LGW) to Montego Bay (MBJ), Wednesday, 18 October
We're sorry. The seat map is not available at this time. Your seats will be assigned at check in.

Will I just have to wait until check-in or am I doing something wrong? Should add that we have requested a SkyCot so might this be why? We are travelling PE.

Thank you in advance for any help. [y]

I must admit to not being sure on this one. However, the seats that allow a sky cot to be used are pre-reserved by virgin and unavailable for pre-request (on the "choose your seat" option on their website) by passengers. As such, your booking may indicate you are in one of these specially held back seats, and as such it will not allow you to request an alternative seat - hence the message you are getting. Hope that makes sense!

If it helps at all, I would not say there is much to choose from between the bassinet seats, so I am not sure I would bother even trying to pre-request.

Thanks - I'm just nervous incase we don't get bassinet seats and end up all over the place - if its just because we have been earmarked for the seats (as requested) then that's great. (I'm more used to BA where you can check that you have been assigned them.) Presumably with PE being a smaller cabin etc there might not be many other infants anyway (fingers crossed!).

Why not phone up FC and see what seats you have been assigned to double check. That is what we did when flying a few months ago.

Much better idea to fly PE when you request a skycot. Travelled in Econ with one a few months ago and if you have the cot installed, you cannot actually raise your TV to watch it. The CC said they had not noticed this before, but it occurred in both outbound and inbound flights to JNB on different aircraft so I believe it is a design issue. We chose to fly Y because we didn't want to disturb other passengers who had paid more, but in most of my recent flights in UC there have been babies, so next time we'll travel where we want to.

Originally posted by dunbarm
We chose to fly Y because we didn't want to disturb other passengers who had paid more, but in most of my recent flights in UC there have been babies, so next time we'll travel where we want to.

That's very thoughtful. However I know there are a number of V-Flyers who fly in PE and UCS with babes in arms upwards and don't find any problems in doing so. For me I'd rather have a well looked after infant as a near neighbour than an adult with an attitude problem.

The only reason for not travelling in the classes you want to travel is that you may set expectations that are harder to meet when they become liable to adult fares...

Paul

[Neil]

It is strange why you cannot select a seat at the moment, but in anycase as you will require a Bulkhead seat these are not available to pre select in the "manage my bookings" section anyway, so guess it would be pretty pointless.

My guess is that VS will have your special request noted on the system and when you check in you will be allocated what you require (when we requested the Bulkhead in PE on a recent flight the Check in staff had to check how many babies where on the flight before he would move us).

If you are worried, as mentioned, a quick call to VS FF team should be able to clear things up, they are very good and that should hopefully ease any worries you might have.

Neil:)

[Neil]

Just an update to this - I was just browsing on the VS site for a couple of things and noticed herethat if 60% of the seats on the a/c have been pre-assigned then the seat map will no longer show for other pax to pre-select their seats. So a possibility is that the 60% allocation has already been taken and therefore the seats that are left must be allocated at the airport.

If you look at the link it explains it better than I have[:I]
Neil:)

Thanks - it wasn't the 60% rule as I have been trying this regularly for the last 9 months or so. [:(]
I phoned FFC and they sorted it (now why didn't I think of that [:I]).
VH had not put through the request for Sky Cot HOWEVER it might not be possible anyway as infant turned 1 at the end of July, and (unlike BA where the age limit is 2) VS Sky Cots are for up to 12mth (although I thought we would be OK on the basis of weight, apparently its age AND weight, not age OR weight). So, at present we have now got seats sitting together. I am awaiting a call from the VH reservations team to see how much extra it would be to buy an extra seat for DS - otherwise he will be on my lap for the flight [n].
Perhaps I can use that glass of champagne to ensure he sleeps for the flight [:p]...

[HighFlyer]

Originally posted by Halo

Perhaps I can use that glass of champagne to ensure he sleeps for the flight [:p]...

If only all parents were as thoughtful as you ...

Thanks,
Sarah

[Neil]

Glad you have sorted it out, although not quite as you had hoped, sounds expensive to buy another seat for the little one, but I guess there isn't many other options I guess[n]

Ne:)il

If he doesn't want the champagne, can I have it?

I found that when i was prebooking my seats for my trip to MBJ in Dec there were hardly any seats left to pre-book.

Also i travelled with my 2 month old baby to UVF last Dec(05) and had the bulkhead seats but was able to move the tv up (albeit a bit of an upheavel) and felt stuck in my seat afterwards but to be honest i found them perfectly ok.

Have a good trip to MBJ its a lovely island:D

I am returning from MBJ on 20th September, I recently found that I have been upgraded to PE, but before I knew that I had been able to book my seats in Economy. good luck