hi shell.

Rather than customer services I think you will need to speak to the "operations" . there may be a Flight operations dept or something along those lines .

whilst I havnt dealt with airtours before I have had success with thomson and also Saga when my elderly father missed his flight after falling asleep at the airport . In that case customer services just told him to claim on his insurance but the flight operations dept actually got him on a flight the next day with no extra charge .

good luck

Is it possible that Going Places have a certain number of seats allocated to them on this flight, none of which are the premium ones? That might then make sense because Going Places can't upgrade you to a seat that isn't theirs to begin with and Monarch can't upgrade you because you didn't pay them for the original seat (you paid Going Places). I don't really know too much about how this sort of thing works so I could be completely wrong... but that would make sense to me. It doesn't help you, of course, since you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Maybe ask to a speak to a manager at Going Places? I always found Going Places to be pretty decent but that was years ago when I lived in the UK and perhaps things have changed.

I can't answer your question but this is my experience.
We recently flew with Monarch on a holiday booked through Thomas Cook (same company as Airtours)
Monarch seem to seat T.C., Airtour passengers in the same area, which seemed to be to the back of the plane.
On checking in I politely asked for aisle seats but was informed by the agent the seats were all ready allocated,
so reading between the lines I think this is why you can't book premium.
I hope you do get sorted but if not tell them you will take your custom elsewhere.

Forgot to mention if you have paid a low deposit and want to cancel you will most likely have to pay the top up for the full deposit, so bear this in mind.

If i remeber rightly, i think it is Thomsons / Airtours and Cosmos on the flight. I am led to believe that it is Cosmos who have the allocation of premium seats and therefore if you are booked through Thomsons / Airtours then you are not able to upgrade.

Even at the airport on the day Monarch wont let you upgrade. If cosmos have empty premium seats then if they are prepared to sell it to you on the day then you might get it but they never did this for any of our customers. I use to work for MyTravel at the airport so we had this scenario most weeks. One week 20 empty premium seats and no bugger would sell one

With Monarch if the seats are not sold they do offer on the Flight but they are £15.00 each way last time I was on Monarch .If the Tour Operator has just bought the standard seats it does'nt let them book these type of seats and so if you go back to Monarch's Operation department they won't have the manifest of the passengers sold by the Tour Operator on their sysyem.

From my experience as a tour operator, when we use flights from another airline, we are allocated a set number of seats for the plane. If there are premium or upgraded seats available they are able to by a percentage of these seats to sell to our own customers.

When our allocation of these premium seats are sold, then the tour perator will show that they are fully booked.
If you have contacted the airline you are flying with (Monarch) and they say the have some premium seats available, then these are only available to be purchased by their own customers, they cannot sell them to you because you have booked through your tour operator.

Some tour operaptors (tho not all) can contact the airline to see if they can purchase additional premium seats from the airline to sell onto their customers.

This requires alot of work from the tour operator, and it depends on the contract they have with the airline, but I have seen it happen.

You will need to contact your tour operator and find out what department is repsponsible for purchasing additional seats. You will be most unlikely to speak that department, and you would need to put in a request which may take some time. It would also be helful if you could contact the airline to find out how many premium seats are available.

It is fairly straighforward from the airline to realese 2 premium seats back to the tour operator who can load them on to their the sytstem, but there is alot of work involved in both sides, which may explain the reluctancy for them to do this.

Very few travel agents are aware this can be done, as they are trained simply to look at the screens and see what is available.

It is a simliar situaion to when tour operators sell out their allocated rooms then have to send out an ETA - (Extra To Allocation) to the hotel to buy more rooms, and if the hotel has any spare rooms they will sell them to the tour operator - this is much more common.

***update***
I have found a number for Thomas Cook (previously Going places) which seems the best number to call - 08705133102
If you explain your problem to them as ask perhaps to speak to Flight Operations if they can, though they might be able to liaise with them on your behalf. Ask if they can ask Monarch to sell Going Paces/Thomas Cook 2 additional Premium seats to them. You should mention that you have spoken to Monarch and there are seats available, and that they cannot sell direct to you, but they can sell back to your tour operator for you to buy.

The person I spoke to on the phone seemed optimistic that this could be done.

I hope this helps, and please let me know how you get on. From my experience working for tour operators (not Thomas Cook), it is possible, but you may have to jump through hoops, but please persevere!

Good luck!

Neil

Thanks everyone for your replies and suggestions. Neil that was such a helpful post thankyou. From what I can gather the travel agents have no idea they can do this, as you said. I'll call that Thomas Cook number and see what they say.

I can't help thinking in these credit crunch times people should be jumping through hoops to get me to spend more money! (Although I hope they don't say it's going to cost hundreds coz they'd have jumped through hoops for nothing if it's too expensive! I'd be willing to pay another £150 for each seat, does that sound about right?)

Thanks for your reply, Just thought I thought i might add another telephone number incase the people who you speak to on the other number I gave you aren't able to help!

This is the number for Thomas Cook Head Office Switchboard - 01733 417100, and if you ask to be transferred to Flight Planning / Flight Operations (Each tour operator has a different name for the department that deals with this)

Try not to let on you are a passenger straight away, as they will just put you right through to Customer Services but don't lie, just talk fast or ignore the question!

If they ask what its's reagarding politely say you need Monarch Airlines to release two premium cabins for outbound flight MON3692 on xth SEP09 and another two for the inbound flight MON3693on xxSEP09 and to load them on the system.

They might need to tranfer you to another department, but if you are speaking to the right person, you'll have a pretty good idea by their reaction if it can or can't be done. Make sure you take a note of their name.

You willl then have to come clean that you are on the flight, and you have beem going roung in circles trying to get this sorted (as it's a special occasion..etc)

I have generally found that the people who work in head office loading holidays into the system all day long are far nicer that the agents who are on the phone all day taking call after call dealing with complaints!

If it can be done, they'll tell you the best way to go about doing it. If it can't be done then at least you can say you tried and you wont have that niggling feeling that they could have done it but just didn't want to go out their way.

The reason I know these tips, is that when I worked for a Tour Operator, I would sometimes have to ask my manager if it was possible to do something for a booking, and rather than checking they would often just say it's not possible, so I would speak to the department that actually knew what they were doing and 9/10 someone from planning or trading would simply adjust the booking with a couple of key-strokes and it would be sorted!

I hope you are one of the 9!

Best of luck, I hope you get your seats!!

Neil