Seat Selection Flights by Celebrity

[WonderMan3]

5 hours ago, Ashland said:

I didn't have to pay for my seat selection on my Lufthansa flight (above). And shouldn't have to pay for my DL (KLM) seat.

We'll see...but your post is very interesting...thanks so much.

As I stated in my prior post, whether you are charged for booking seats will vary by airline or class of service. They all have different policies. 

[terrydtx]

We booked our RT air to Venice from San Antonio for next May with Celebrity Air in Business class on Delta Airlines. We saved $500pp over what we could get through Delta direct. After we booked we got the email within 24 hours from Celebrity with our record locator number and then selected our seats on Delta's web site for NO extra fee. We only fly to Europe in Premium Economy or Business class and Celebrity Air is consistently less than booking direct with the airlines for these two classes of service. My TA also can't beat CA pricing with her business class consolidators either.

 

Before we booked on Delta we had booked on British Airways through Celebrity and when we went to the BA web site to pick our seats they wanted $160pp to pick seats before the flight check in. This is a total  ripoff for booking business class so we canceled and went with Delta. I will never book with BA because of their fees policy for picking seats prior to check in 24 hours before departure. From what I could find out BA and Air France are the only intercontinental carriers from the US to Europe that charge fees for pre choosing seats. There may be more that I didn't find, but United, AA, Lufthansa and Delta do not charge these ridiculous fees.

Edited September 15, 2020 by terrydtx

[Covepointcruiser]

Be aware that airlines have a habit of changing aircraft.   We had wonderful BC seats selected on United 11 months before our flight.   We even had our boarding passes printed at check in with the right seats.   When we showed our passes before entering the jetway we were given new seat assignments.   My husband and I were 8 seats apart and you had to go through the gallery to get to each other.   It was the same plane, 757, but totally different seating configuration.    We had paid for the flight but didn’t have to pay for the seating selection.    Don’t ever count on specific seats as you will see in the small print, they can change your seats as needed.   This had also happened the year before when I found a US Marshall in my seat.   My husband noticed he was armed so I took my new seat quietly.   Lufthansa code shares with United so don’t get attached to the seats you have selected.

[Ashland]

1 hour ago, Covepointcruiser said:

Be aware that airlines have a habit of changing aircraft.   We had wonderful BC seats selected on United 11 months before our flight.   We even had our boarding passes printed at check in with the right seats.   When we showed our passes before entering the jetway we were given new seat assignments.   My husband and I were 8 seats apart and you had to go through the gallery to get to each other.   It was the same plane, 757, but totally different seating configuration.    We had paid for the flight but didn’t have to pay for the seating selection.    Don’t ever count on specific seats as you will see in the small print, they can change your seats as needed.   This had also happened the year before when I found a US Marshall in my seat.   My husband noticed he was armed so I took my new seat quietly.   Lufthansa code shares with United so don’t get attached to the seats you have selected.

It's up to the traveler to keep occasionally checking or have any change notification sent to you by the carrier. This has worked out for us on many flights....No surprises so far.

[Mr&MrsTop-Ret.]

I booked our air the same time I booked our cruise (Jun 2021). After I hung up with the agent, I got on the Delta app, and was immediately able to select my seats without having to pay anything additional. This was essentially a re book, since Royal cancelled our nearly identical cruise. Since I had pretty much finished planning/booking everything, it was just a matter of shifting dates (also, I have not paid upfront for anything). As far as the flight - I was able to get the same flight numbers, times, and seats just a week later and a bit less expensive!

Edited September 27, 2020 by Mr&MrsTop-Ret.

[Ashland]

I recently booked with Flights By Celebrity. I was able to select my business class seats, flight & times I wanted with DL (KLM) and have also already done one re-price. Nothing due until my final payment in May 2021.

[PinkSandGirl]

Hi!  This is my experience with Flights by Celebrity.  I first check independently what the options are for flights, plane type, seats and price.  I then check with Celebrity Air and call to book and choose my seats at the same time.  Since they started offering it, I take advantage of the Book Now, Pay Later option.  I provide our frequent flyer #'s.  Once I have the record locator #, I log in to my airline account to then have the reservation linked to my account.  The seat choices show.  The ticket shows as Pending until about 50 days before the flight and then it will finally show as Ticketed.  If for some reason I wanted to change seats, I am able to but have to call Flights by Celebrity if it's before the Ticketed status. 

 

Notes

* I fly First / Business but I imagine seats can be chosen for anywhere on the plane.

* I have done this by booking American Airlines flights.

* I regularly check the price because if it goes down before final payment you can call to get the lower price.

* I regularly check the plane type & time.  I've had the time change and also plane changes...for example from an Airbus to a Boeing and the row #'s start differently.  Airbus starts with Row 1.  Boeing starts with Row 3.   When the plane type changed,  they changed the row position I prefer.   I called Celebrity Air to change seats.  Flights by Celebrity, in my experience, has never sent a notification of plane or time changes which is why I check often myself.  I haven't had a change after Ticketing so perhaps they send notifications then.  I sign up for notifications with the airline, usually I get those.

* They guarantee to get you to the ship.

* As for price, it's usually close to, sometimes a little lower than booking with the airline.  The only times it's been significantly less for me is when Celebrity would have a sale for airfare. 

* I always travel with family and friends.  Since I link our reservations I also book their airfare at the same time.

 

* The one negative is my May 2020 cruise airfare refund took over 5 months to get credited.   I know Celebrity had/has alot to deal with but I called numerous, too many to mention, times and would be told...a few more days.  I do realize this was a small issue to deal with, it was more of an annoyance.

 

I'm sure I provided more information than you wanted and things you may already know but just thought I would share my experiences with Flights by Celebrity. 😉

 

😃

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by PinkSandGirl

[emmas gran]

 I fly First / Business but I imagine seats can be chosen for anywhere on the plane.

 

Not in the UK

[Islander500]

Just an update to this thread.  Yesterday I booked Delta to Boston for a fall 2023 cruise through Flights through Celebrity.  Even though we don't have to pay for the flights until final payment in June (loved that!), immediately after booking I was able to use the confirmation number to select seats on the Delta website. 

[terrydtx]

37 minutes ago, Islander500 said:

Just an update to this thread.  Yesterday I booked Delta to Boston for a fall 2023 cruise through Flights through Celebrity.  Even though we don't have to pay for the flights until final payment in June (loved that!), immediately after booking I was able to use the confirmation number to select seats on the Delta website. 

Two weeks ago, we booked with FBC our flights for next September to Amsterdam returning from Athens. We fly from San Antonio to Houston to AMS on United and return from Athens on American with connections in Madrid and DFW. We booked business class at $1200pp less than we could direct and immediately were able to book seats on Unted website, but AA will not let us until the tickets are paid by FBC next June and then issued by AA.  We didn't have much choice in booking AA as we got better connection flights to US, our other options included stops in London, Frankfort or Zurich then to US. At least in BC there are no really bad seats so we can wait until next June to choose seats. Both United and AA have great connections, United in Houston and AA in DFW so we are happy. However, flight costs are way higher than what we paid this year to fly to Italy in BC.

[FourNines]

@terrydtx Do you have a PNR number for those AA flights? If so, here's a quick hack for viewing and choosing seats on American:

Unless something has recently changed, you have to use a One World partner other than American to select seats using the PNR number. In the past I have used the Royal Jordanian Airlines website (rj.com) to accomplish this.

Once on the rj website, go to manage booking and supply you last name and PNR number. It should pull up the AA reservation even if your not flying RJ. You'll be able to choose your seats and save the information. 

 

Hope this helps.

 

[terrydtx]

2 hours ago, FourNines said:

@terrydtx Do you have a PNR number for those AA flights? If so, here's a quick hack for viewing and choosing seats on American:

Unless something has recently changed, you have to use a One World partner other than American to select seats using the PNR number. In the past I have used the Royal Jordanian Airlines website (rj.com) to accomplish this.

Once on the rj website, go to manage booking and supply you last name and PNR number. It should pull up the AA reservation even if your not flying RJ. You'll be able to choose your seats and save the information. 

 

Hope this helps.

 

I just tried your suggestion, and I was able to pull up the flight but it would not let me choose seats, it said I had to contact the original carrier for seat selection.

Edited December 13, 2022 by terrydtx

[FourNines]

43 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

I just tried your suggestion, and I was able to pull up the flight but it would not let me choose seats, it said I had to contact the original carrier for seat selection.

Can you see what seats are available? If so, have you tried calling FBC with your preferred seats?

I'm trying to think back to the last time we used FBC and how I went about selecting seats.

If you cannot see the current seat map and availability, post the flight number, date and class and I'll dig up what's available for you to use for your call

Edited December 13, 2022 by FourNines

[terrydtx]

7 minutes ago, FourNines said:

Can you see what seats are available? If so, have you tried calling FBC with your preferred seats?

I'm trying to think back to the last time we used FBC and how I went about selecting seats.

If you cannot see the current seat map and availability, post the flight number, date and class and I'll dig up what's available for you to use for your call

I use the Expert Flyer web site to see seat maps on almost any flight and I can see the seats for our flights, I was going to use this when I called FBC, but they were also unable to book seats on the AA flights. I also called AA and got told they couldn't do seats until the tickets are issued when paid. The officially show our flights as being "On Hold" status.

[FourNines]

23 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

I use the Expert Flyer web site to see seat maps on almost any flight and I can see the seats for our flights, I was going to use this when I called FBC, but they were also unable to book seats on the AA flights. I also called AA and got told they couldn't do seats until the tickets are issued when paid. The officially show our flights as being "On Hold" status.

Expert Flyer is the way to go for award availability and seat selection.

AA is a strange beast. We fly them (or One World partners) exclusively and sometimes we have to jump through hoops to arrange our desired flights. I am currently working on setting up out flights for our Suez canal cruise, and I'm having to hack through gateways and partners to find availability for upgrades/award tickets. There's no way I'm paying $15K (or 250k miles plus $1500 each) for BC seats for our FCO outbound and DBX return flights.

 

[jagoffee]

31 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

I use the Expert Flyer web site to see seat maps on almost any flight and I can see the seats for our flights, I was going to use this when I called FBC, but they were also unable to book seats on the AA flights. I also called AA and got told they couldn't do seats until the tickets are issued when paid. The officially show our flights as being "On Hold" status.

Since I am always able to select seats on AA and I know you are not able to book seats, I tried to look it up, since I am curious as to why are experiences are so different. (Or hopefully I can give you advise that might work)

Are you on flight AA37 or AA8632 from Mad to DFW?
Also when I go into AA.com, I cannot book any AA flights (All airlines) from Athens to Mad.  Is this a non AA booking?

[terrydtx]

22 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

Since I am always able to select seats on AA and I know you are not able to book seats, I tried to look it up, since I am curious as to why are experiences are so different. (Or hopefully I can give you advise that might work)

Are you on flight AA37 or AA8632 from Mad to DFW?
Also when I go into AA.com, I cannot book any AA flights (All airlines) from Athens to Mad.  Is this a non AA booking?

The problem with AA is that our tickets status is shown as "On Hold" and not confirmed so AA cannot select seats, which is why FBC can't as well. I am a big loyalty member with an AA Platinum Select CC and that doesn't even matter in this case. I have run into this in the past with AA when I book flights with a cruise line with AA. I appreciate the offer to help and there are plenty of seats available, but AA has their way of doing things. I will worry about this after the first of the year as I am confident our flights will most likely change one or more times before we fly next September. Our out bound United flight to AMS changed already on last Friday when the departure time and aircraft type changed.

[jagoffee]

32 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

The problem with AA is that our tickets status is shown as "On Hold" and not confirmed so AA cannot select seats, which is why FBC can't as well. I am a big loyalty member with an AA Platinum Select CC and that doesn't even matter in this case. I have run into this in the past with AA when I book flights with a cruise line with AA. I appreciate the offer to help and there are plenty of seats available, but AA has their way of doing things. I will worry about this after the first of the year as I am confident our flights will most likely change one or more times before we fly next September. Our out bound United flight to AMS changed already on last Friday when the departure time and aircraft type changed.

OK, if you ever change you mind, let me know.