NWA-- will we have seats?

[Hockey Ninja]

My husband and I are going to Disney for a weekend trip next month. (Yay for whims!) I booked us on Northwest round-trip. For the trip to MCO, I had no problem selecting seats for us. The flight back to DTW, however, is a different story. All of the regular seats have already been taken! The only ones showing are the "premium" and "coach choice" seats that you have to pay extra for. (But they don't become available for purchase until online check-in begins.)

Does this mean they've overbooked? Are we going to have to ride in the luggage compartment? Because it's probably unpleasantly cold in there. What if other people come along and snap up the extra-fee seats before we can get online?

<-- Since we can't teleport like the little smiley can, this could be a problem!

 

[Tara]

No, it just means there are no more seats available for assignment. A percentage of seats are held for assignment on the day of the flight.

 

[Mr. Pig]

My husband and I are going to Disney for a weekend trip next month. (Yay for whims!) I booked us on Northwest round-trip. For the trip to MCO, I had no problem selecting seats for us. The flight back to DTW, however, is a different story. All of the regular seats have already been taken! The only ones showing are the "premium" and "coach choice" seats that you have to pay extra for. (But they don't become available for purchase until online check-in begins.)

Does this mean they've overbooked? Are we going to have to ride in the luggage compartment? Because it's probably unpleasantly cold in there. What if other people come along and snap up the extra-fee seats before we can get online?

<-- Since we can't teleport like the little smiley can, this could be a problem!

Wow, what a coincidence!!! We have the same situation. We fly down to MCO on Delta and back on NWA. I reserved our seats on the way down on Delta's website but was not able to do the return flight. Too late I realized I needed to go to the NWA website to select those seats and all that were left were the premium and exit rows just like you. We did make a call to NWA to find out and got the same answer that the PP said. They said they set aside a certain amount of seats that can't be pre-assigned in case they have to do some moving around at the last minute like if there are families with children that can't be split up or other reasons. They assured us that we will have seats but you won't be able to select them ahead of time. They will be assigned when you get your boarding pass. Now this does not mean that the flight is not potentially overbooked.

 

[sanibelover]

Just flew NW back from FLA last month - no seats showed as available online, but the flight was not full. Check online at 24 hours out and some of the exit row seats may be available for assignment. I was able to change our seat assignments online at the 24 hour mark. There were a lot of folks without seat assignments on our plane - the list on the monitor was about 25 names long - all of them got on the plane with room to spare.

 

[brianm27]

Keep checking back. Especially at about 5 days out. NWA will start upgrading any elite members to first class. There is a slight chance that this will open some seats. Also, people cancel.

I used to fly quite a bit on NW and would typically be Gold or Silver elite. Sometimes I would not pick a seat in the preferred section because there were no asiles left. I would watch and when one opened, I would move up, releasing a regular seat. KEEP TRYING!

 

[Hockey Ninja]

Thank you all.

 

[DebbieB]

I have flown NW alot for business and they hold alot of seats for their elite flyers, hoping they will book them last minute (I rarely book more than a month out). Keep watching the seat chart, some may open up. At 24 hours, all the premium seats will open to anyone.

 

[kda]

I just flew NWA and had a similar experience --- only middle seats available when I booked. I checked every few days and window/aisle seats opened up. People upgrade, cancel, change their seats, etc, etc, etc. I changed seats on one flight 4 times. And there was a more availability when I checked in at the 24 hr mark.