We travel every year to Japan and have in the past booked direct flights from Heathrow as it’s a long flight so have not considered anything else. However this year, when we decided to make our flight reservations KLM were offering competitive prices from London City to Tokyo via Amsterdam. We decided we would upgrade our seats to give extra comfort and possibly legroom. KLM advertise on their website economy comfort seats and seats with extra legroom, so we went online to make the booking.
The website indicates you can book these seats either during the booking process or “Immediately after booking, you will automatically enter My Trip, where you will find all your travel and personal information and can provide important information and book comfortable extras”. It then goes on to explain this includes the better seats I described above. But the booking process did not offer this option but thought it would be possible to take up the options “immediately after booking” But whilst “My Trip” also gives an indication one can do this, there was no link to do so.
We contacted by phone KLM (and Air France as the flights had an Air France number). Both at first could not understand why it was not possible to upgrade the seats but eventually said it was because of “operational reasons” but could not be more specific. I tried on Facebook to find out why and eventually was told it would not be possible to upgrade seats until we check in, just a few days before we fly.
This should have been clear before we booked our flight or at least during the booking process. At no time was this suggested. In fact the website says the earlier you book the “lower the price”.
So the website is at least misleading or misrepresents the truth. Its statement online you can reserve your seats during the booking process (no if or buts) was totally wrong on this occasion.
We therefore cancelled our booking and received a refund a week or so later. But all this was a waste of time and means we will never book with KLM again and certainly would not recommend any doing so. So be aware.
