5 things I hate about Qantas: #4

Reason #4: You cannot get the seat you prefer.

Let’s face it. It is a 15-hour-plus flight. As a frequent traveler, we all know how important seats are, especially if you fly economy.

Oops, Qantas does NOT allow you to choose your seat online if you buy your ticket from America — Later on, someone told me you can choose your seat online from Australia, which did not work for us. It seems to me that as long as your tickets were issued in America, there is nothing you can do with Qantas online.

I even tried to register with American Airlines (Qantas’s US partner) and go from their website to retrieve my record. That did not work either. Apparently, the so-called “OneWorld” alliance is really a separate world.

So in cases like this one would call their agents. Here is the most ridiculous thing: All their agents seem to be in a hurry all the time, and while they assign you a seat — and indeed you do see your assigned seat numbers on the printed schedule – they warn you that Qantas cannot guarantee these seats.

What kind of twisted and pathetic airline is this?

In America even if you do not have an elite status, you can either choose your seats online or call to get the seats you prefer, and all the airlines here honor their commitment.

So guess what, when we got to the check-in counter, all our previous assigned seats were gone. Even when we presented them with a printout of our schedule, clearly indicating the assigned seats, all they did was to shake their head and gave us some other seats regardless— and definitely not these that we prefer. Let me also point out here that the flight from L.A. to Melbourne was almost half empty in the first place!

Excuse me, Mr. Qantas, if you cannot honor your promise, why bother make one?!

This blog post is associated with “A380: Nice; Qantas: Not even close“.

See also “5 things I hate about Qantas: #1, #2, #3, and #5.”