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Most long time readers know I am not a fan of coach. For short trips, fine, but for longer than 3 hours I want to be in the comfy seats with “cool refreshing drinks” brought to me by smiling and attentive FAs. This is one of the reasons when I do book mileage runs I tend to stick domestic as much as I can; as a Delta Diamond Medallion my upgrades tend to run about 90%.
However, the NAI price assault on flights to Scandinavia has caused the MR’er in me to go a bit nuts this year. One of them I fixed by using upgrade certs so no coach there (other than a short hop from Amsterdam up to Sweden). The next one, however, that I had to jump on will be quality time in coach. Not just this, but time on Air France and KLM coach. Ruh-Roh!
Unless you fly these Skyteam partners you may not be aware of some slightly bothersome issues that can come up (if you detect a hint of sarcasm you are reading this correctly). You see, sometimes, you can pick seats on DELTA.dumb and think you have the seat you want only to have it not happen in reality when you go to fly. The fix has been to setup an account on KLM.com or AirFrance.com and pick seats that way. But even that does not always work.
You see as a Delta elite+ i.e. Platinum Medallion or higher you should be able to get better seats free. On KLM the economy comfort is much like Delta’s and free for us. On AF you can get exit row etc. but not their upgraded economy comfort that is almost a business “lite” seat and service.
For 8+ hours across the Atlantic ocean I did not want a bad seat. Delta did what they could at booking but were limited. I thought about calling KLM & AirFrance but that can go bad. Enter the power of Twitter. As you can see by the above tweets I got just the seat I wanted, but it did take a few extra tweets to show my seat confirmed. I then logged on to KLM & AF web sites and do see the seats confirmed and printed those pages as well. So far so good I am in exit row on an AF 747 and on the KLM 777 on the return in EC with NO seat in front of me for unlimited leg room. This works if it all works that is!
Other bits. I also, since I want to earn Delta points not Flying Blue points, made sure on both the KLM and AF site that my Delta Skymiles number is in their reservation system for the itinerary as well as on Delta.com. Why? When I check-in for the return trip Delta will send me to KLM to check-in. This is when things can go wrong and you don’t get the credit you want. Better to check now and print confirmations of what you want! – René
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I used twitter to contact KLM as well and it worked great.
I recently flew on a KLM 772 in seat 10 J. It was a great seat and I could get out without bothering the person in the aisle. Just a word of caution. People really congregate in front of 10A/B while waiting for the lav and routinely used the space in front of 10 D/E/F as a walkway to get over to the lavs. The IFE boxes under the seats are terrible on this aircraft. They take up half the underseat space of every aisle seat except the the F seats (11F, 12F, etc).
@Brad – txs for outstanding feedback and comment. very useful!
Rene–
I was just thinking about something in this vein this morning. My wife and I are connecting through AMS onto a KLM flight to MAD this summer. I’m a GM. Are there preferred seats worth getting on KLM’s Europe flights, and that are available to me for free? It’s a 737…
Thanks!
@jkealing – even biz seats intra-Europe are the same bad seats you get in coach. I would tweet them and try to get exit or better FREE. Don’t pay! Please.
Rene, I am doing a Gothenburg Miles run in September from LAX. . AF -A380 on the way there and klm 747 on the way back. When are you going?
Make sure to grab an extra blanket or pillow to sit on when you have the exit row. Those seats are significantly harder. I did a run to Singapore last year in EC exit row. I liked the extra space but the hard seat was not comfortable.
@Dennis – txs for tips and will do. for me, as long as I have leg room, it is all that matters. but I will bring a warm blanket.
I’ve always considered KLM to be one of the best benefits to Delta medallion status. I make the trek that way (from LAX) at least 4 times a year, and the number keeps growing. Speaking from personal experience, my time with KLM has been almost perfect. I’ve actually gotten better service in economy than I have in business. The FA’s regularly come to your seat, take a knee, and ask how everything was (while addressing you by name). I don’t know if they have a list of elite+ or something, but it’s always blown me away.
AF has always been a little…different. lol–never BAD though. I’m perfectly confident that I will have a pleasant flight in KLM economy comfort, although having experienced their new WBC seats, I’d still rather be up there.
OH–and the way their airport service staff treats you (even when I was a silver medallion) is outstanding. They really know how to make you feel like they appreciate your loyalty to the alliance.
I should have done this for my flight yesterday! I couldn’t get a preferred seat on the web and tried emailing them to no avail. Ended up in a crappy seat on the A380 and hated myself the entire 10.5 hour flight from JNB-CDG.
Are DMs the only medallions with the ability to select economy comfort seats on KLM?
@PQ – PM & DM are free.
Yeah !!! Thanks to your tips, it worked for me as well with AirFrance !!