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A 17-hour flight is too long to gamble on an uncomfortable seat, and I should have been able to get my seat when I purchased the flight

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How were you on a 17 hour flight for a Chicago-Venice flight? Total flight time is less than 12 hours if your connection was in MAD.

You can't purchase an advance seat assignment for Iberia if you purchased the ticket through AA and you are in coach. You can only choose a seat when you do online check in 24 hours in advance.

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I'm guessing you wouldn't be happy.

Codeshares can be a pain. I try to avoid whenever possible.

I did try the 24 hr advance on line seat selection and had two different numbers to try- neither worked- one from AA which I did not expect would and the other from Iberia given to me over the phone from their international desk- it didn't allow me to check in 24 hrs ahead or select a seat. I just wish the Iberia agent hadn't wasted my time and gotten my hopes up.

Strangely though, when we were returning from Geneva, I went up to a desk in their airport the day before our flight which appeared to not be for Iberia or AA- more like Swiss Air, but they were a line of desks when you walked in and I asked for directions to an Air Iberia agent and she said, "I think I can help you.." So I said, well, I don't think ,so but thanks and gave her my information and without muss or fuss she gave me passes assigned seats for both Air Iberia and AA at that time- as if it were no problem... I love the Swiss ! So efficient!

Hi, sorry to read about the trouble you had to go through.

You are right AA is using SABRE while IB is using AMADEUS. And to make it worse the interface between the two does not come up with a record locator that would be unique in both systems and usable at the same time on the AA site AND the IB site. Sad that IT people are not creative enough to get this done.

However you can call the AA customer service and request them to assign you a more suitable seat provided you are AA Platinum or above. This from the time of booking and at no cost :) not as convenient as doing that yourself but still ;)

As a oneworld Sapphire or Emerald member you are clearly entitled to that advantage as stated in the seating policy from IB:

http://www.iberia.com/reserva-de-asientos/

Pueden realizar la reserva anticipada de los asientos Turista XL sin coste

[...]

Clientes Club Fiesta de Iberia, Iberia Plus Platino y Oro (esmeralda y zafiro de oneworld).

This can be a problem with any codeshare flight. I had the same thing with a Lufthansa flight booked through Continental. In that case, I think it might have just been Lufthansa's policy though. I'm not sure it would have been different if I had booked through Lufthansa.

This is not at all unusual for a code share. As noted, it's worth avoiding in most cases. This is not unique to AA.

I just had the same thing happen to me on an American codeshare flight from Madrid to Chicago. Even though I have AAdvantage Gold status, I am unable to reserve a seat until 24 hours before departure and would not have booked the flight if I knew that was the case. You would think American would be savvy enough to negotiate advance seating for all its elite frequent fliers. Does anyone know whether I will be able to reserve my seat 24 hours ahead of time on the American Airlines website? I tried plugging in my confirmation code on the Iberia website and it wasn't recognized. Calling Iberia in Spain 24 hours ahead of the flight will be challenging as I don't speak Spanish.