Airtran FYI involving assigned seats

[MiaSRN62]

Just passing along an FYI. I was not aware of this until friends of mine went to join us and hopped online to book.
Originally when we booked Airtran in October I had paid the extra $6 per seat to reserve specific seat numbers. About a day or two ago, I saw a price drop for our flight and called to get a credit.
Fast forward to today. My friends said that our seats were showing as "available" today online. I called Airtran and they told me any time you make any change to your flight reservation (even a price drop credit), you lose your seat assignment. They instructed me to tell the person we speak to that I "wish to retain my seat assignment" next time I make ANY change to my reservation. Glad this was caught ! Husband and I would not have been happy if we arrived to find we weren't able to sit together.

 

[pkb24824]

This happened to us for our trip to WDW in December. I had called to credit my A+ Rewards Account because the airfare had gone down and asked them to put my seat assignments back in. I didn't realize that they hadn't until a month or two later. I originally had rows 17 and 19 and when I called, of course, they were already taken. Now we are in rows 24 and 25. Even though you tell them, check your reservations later that day or the next day to see if the seat assignments were put back in.

 

[Tara619]

Do they charge the $75 change fee if the rates go down and you call for a credit? I've seen conflicting answers on this.

 

[lylone]

Do they charge the $75 change fee if the rates go down and you call for a credit? I've seen conflicting answers on this.

In the 7 years I have been flying AirTran, they have NEVER charged me a change fee when their rates have gone down. I just call and ask for a credit and then they tell me what the credit amount is.

When I do call and get a credit, I always go back and check my reservation. Sometimes they hold my seats and other times they don't.

It's also good to check before your trip once in awhile if they have changed flight times. They used to do that often but not much in the last 2 years. They do send emails when flight times change, but it is not immediately when the flight changes.

 

[MiaSRN62]

This happened to us for our trip to WDW in December. I had called to credit my A+ Rewards Account because the airfare had gone down and asked them to put my seat assignments back in. I didn't realize that they hadn't until a month or two later. I originally had rows 17 and 19 and when I called, of course, they were already taken. Now we are in rows 24 and 25. Even though you tell them, check your reservations later that day or the next day to see if the seat assignments were put back in.

Thank you pkb24824 ! Just checked and my reserved seat assignments are showing up as "unavailable" now. I will keep checking periodically just in case though.

Tara...they did not charge me a $75 fee for the price drop. I think most people would not feel that was worth the fee because the fare drop is rarely going to be $75 per ticket. Ours dropped $3o per ticket and I thought that was a decent amount. I got a $60 credit to our account with Airtran the other day when I called.

 

[maxiesmom]

It must depend on the agent. When I called for a credit a few months ago, the person I spoke with told me to hang on so she could re-assign our seats. And I have checked the flights, and they are there.

Sounds like an easy excuse for their agent not doing their job correctly. But at least you caught it! That is good!!!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

It must depend on the agent. When I called for a credit a few months ago, the person I spoke with told me to hang on so she could re-assign our seats. And I have checked the flights, and they are there.

That was our experience as well.

 

[kaytieeldr]

If AirTran's process is like jetBlue's, the representative actually cancels your existing reservation and rebooks it at the lower rate. Not reassigning the original is more human error than not doing their job . It happened to me once (which is how I learned how passengers get the lower fare credit).