Trying to book an Air Canada flight on Orbitz.

If I book at Air Canada's site, I have the option of pre-purchasing a "meal" but a section of the seating chart is blocked out except for the highest booking level. If I book via Orbitz, the fare is less and only a few seats (not the whole forward section) are blocked out, and I'm able to "request" a seat I need; but there's no reference to prepaying for food.

Have you booked AC on Orbitz? Does Ac honor the Orbitz seating request? Can you purchase food on board without having 'prepurchased' it?

Also: how do I make sure I get UA miles (not a member of AC's program)?

Anyone? Anyone?

I don't know anything about booking on Orbitz. But, if you want to accrue miles to United, make sure you understand the fare basis. I'm not sure where you're flying, but some discount economy fares within Canada don't earn full mileage on United (and a few earn no miles).

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,,1180,00.html

The last time I flew Air Canada, I called Air Canada and added my Mileage Plus number to the record; miles credited without any issues.

Am probably changing my itinerary and will not use Air Canada BUT I'm a little surprised at the thin response here. Perhaps no one uses Orbitz (I know all the reasons not to, but once in a while, they've had a better fare than the airline website) or perhaps no one uses it for international trips.

"...I'm a little surprised at the thin response here."

HKP, I should have thought to nudge you over to the Air Canada forum at FlyerTalk. There is a much greater likelihood of getting a response to this sort of question on FT. You do have to register to post, but it's easy enough:

www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=375

Anselm

Anselm is right, the best advice is on flyertalk.

But for what it's worth:

Yes, you can purchase food on board without having prepurchased it.
I've never used Orbitz because in my experience, fares offered by AC during AC's seat sales are invariably cheaper than any booking agent such as Expedia or Orbitz. Also, I feel more comfortable dealing direct with AC.

Re your miles: According to UA's website, "If you forgot to add your Mileage Plus account number to your reservation or at check in, or you believe that miles earned for your Star Alliance flight or for one of our other airline partners have not been credited to your Mileage Plus account, please remember you must allow 14 days after your flight has been completed before requesting retro-credit...."

Point being, it is possible to get miles credited retroactively if for some reason you can't do so during your Orbitz booking or at check-in.

Interesting that you have more seats available to select when using Orbitz than AC. Of course, the proof of the pudding will come when it is time to actually book the seat, as when putting down the money for the fare. Some third party booking engines (travelocity is infamous for this) have the annoying habit of saying 'that fare is no longer available' so perhaps the same is true for seat selection.

There aren't any reasons not to book on Orbitz. If the fare is better then book thru Orbitz. No seat assignment is guaranteed no matter how it is booked and you don't get response seat unavailable (ie when picking a seat on a map)during a booking. The annoying habit referred to here about fares not being available when you pick one to book is to do with the airlines themselves and what they load into the various systems that the booking sites use.

Odin, in fairness to booking engines in general, I've used Expedia several times to book BA flights quite happily. That said, I still don't like going through third parties without a good reason, just as a matter of principle.

I'm inclined to be stubborn and still assess booking engines some responsibility for keeping fares available reasonably up to date. After all, the booking site doesn't have to wait for a prospective customer to request a fare on a given flight before it checks the airline's inventory of fares available for that flight (or at least the inventory of seats that the airline has alloted to the booking site). Given that this annoyance seems to happen a lot less on Expedia, it is possible that they are making more routine scans of the airline's inventory, and routinely making the necessary adjustments as to what is the lowest fare being advertised. True, seats are constantly being sold and it is a constant game of catch-up, but there is still no need in the current era to keep stale prices posted for as long as they are on Travelocity, for example.

As for seat selection, when a seat is selected, it is supposed to be marked as occupied on the seat selection map - this is, in effect, the equivalent of a response of 'seat not available' - at least for the purposes of customer self-selection (obviously the airline itself can override it.)So, given the fare update problems, I can hardly be blamed for being a tad cynical that the seat selection maps used by a given booking engine might be as stale as their updates of current prices.

But, if Orbitz hasn't had these problems, then more power to it.

Oh, heck, I thought about it, and realized you are right.

Dang, hate it when that happens.....