Econony Seat Downgrade Issue

Hi Guys,

I just called Swansea and was pretty astounded to find out the following...... Keen to see what everyones thoughts are on it.

I am travelling a week today on the A330 to MIA and I am on a separate Booking Ref from Mrs C and Little C. I am in Delight and they are in Classic. I am in Delight pretty much for the 50 TP's and we are trying to be sat together. The new economy classing obviously in the online seat map only shows you the seats for the effective "class" or fare bucket you have booked, so it will not let me move to a "non delight" seat. I called Swansea expecting this to be a simple formality and they pretty much said they cannot do it without a physical downgrade of my class of ticket. I'm pretty astounded. I know it will 100% be able to be done at the check-in desk at LHR but amazed they cannot do this now and will likely lose the vacant seat between now and then. I'm even more intrigued when pax travel with family and are booked in UC when others might be in the back and looking to forgo that simply to sit together and still earn the 100TP benefit. (although a bit unique, I'm sure it happens). I know the option is to just have them in Delight too, but the upgrade is now double the cost of what it was a few days ago at the actual point of booking. I even looked at the Bid for an Upgrade which it was showing me as an option and I have checked out a few times before, only for the picture to be completely misleading as it shows Premium (not ideal for those who do not really know) and the link when followed not actually allowing bids between the three Economy classes, just as it always has been for Premium & Upper. More negative points for the once great VS.

[mitchja]

With the old system where extra leg room seats where just charged a supplement on top of economy - it would have been easy as VS could have just refunded the supplement and moved you in the cabin but because VS now ticket and market Economy Delight separately from Economy, as you say any changes either way between Economy Delight and Economy now means it's now a fare change as per any other cabin upgrades or downgrades.

Delta also ticket and market their Comfort+ fares in those VS Economy Delight seats now as well. If you book DL Comfort+ on a TATL flight which uses VS metal, you will be assigned an Economy Delight seat.

It's basically all down to VS alining their cabin products with DL so both partners ticket and market 5 separate cabin types on across their both International fleets:

VS Economy Light = DL Basic Economy
VS Economy = DL Main Cabin
VS Economy Delight = DL Comfort+
VS Premium = DL Premium Select (where available as this is still rolling out)
VS Upper Class = DL Delta One

Sounds right to me. If you had an UC booking and wanted to sit in Y I very much doubt that VS - or any airline - would just allocate you a seat in Y in advance without formally processing it as a downgrade. So as James says the same would apply between different sub-classes of Y.

Bottom line - paying extra to sit in better seats or in a higher cabin doesn’t entitle you to sit wherever you like on the aircraft.

So yes, you’ll probably have to sort this out at check-in and hope for the best, or even on board if the seat you want has gone. If there’s someone in it, offer them your (better) seat in Delight.