Unable to pre book seats on Thomas cook

My sister has the pleasure of flying with Thomas Cook from Gatwick to Puerto Plata next month and she was telling me that her baggage allowance is a miserable 15kg. Is this now the ‘norm’ for charter airlines?

I’ve just got back from FUE with Thomas Cook, and the baggage allowance is 15kg per person, but you do have the option of booking an additional 5kg per passenger at an extra cost.

i thought 20 was for long haul charter, grey area for short medium haul some do 20 some do 15.
but hey 2 years ago did (the now ended) BMI Man-Antigua run as part of a Thomas Cook package and was offered the standard BMI 63KG for long haul, i don’t think we had 63kg between the 3 of us let alone each!

My sister has the pleasure of flying with Thomas Cook from Gatwick to Puerto Plata next month and she was telling me that her baggage allowance is a miserable 15kg. Is this now the ‘norm’ for charter airlines?

Thanks for the info chaps, look like we will have to get there 4 hours before to secure seats together.

Also as these are all ex My travel/airtours 330s are these the ones with the toilets downstairs, or has this now been removed, as didnt Tcook take a new build 330 last year?.

I had a similar issue when going away last year to the Dominican Republic, the girl I was with wasn’t keen on flying and we had to pay £20 each, each way, to pre-book a seat, so we didn’t bother.

We turned up well early, and then for some reason the woman put is right at the very back, in a bolt upright seat that couldn’t recline, with sod all legroom, right next to the galley and toilets. I couldn’t believe we’d been given such a crap seat. (In fact, I think it’s disgusting they actually have seats there, especially on a 9 hour flight!!)

To my delight, however, we got moved during taxi to a Premium seat, which would have been over £100 extra per person!! Didn’t get the free drinks, but that was the least of my worries.

If you turn up early enough, it’s most likely that you’ll be seated together and you may get lucky and get moved up front – just ask!

SN
i remember a chat with a girl of your type at the old airtours desks a MAN
we were a family of 3 with a baby 15 months old, with 2 seats booked
Me “if theres any sapre seats could you sort it so we have a spare seat beside us”
check-in “woukd you like to purchase another seat sir”
me ” no but if theres any spare could you try to leave one next to us empty”
check in “you want to buy another seat sir”
me “NO i just want a spare one beside us”
check-in “sorry sir flight is full today no spare seats”

… and big queues to the stinking toilets too.

As this flight is a charter it’ll be completely full. When I have a spare 5 minutes I edit flights. I sit all the infants in the right seat, get all the groups of kids separated and any frequent fliers up at the front. I also get big groups sitting together too.

I doubt you’ll have many kids on this flight, but lots of groups. These will all be preseated before the flight is open. Couples are easy to slot in anywhere, so I don’t bother preseating them.

Get there early or you’ll be risking it, or you can be a bit cheeky and request a wheelchair, then they’ll preseat you together. Just tell them when you check-in that you don’t need it. They wouldn’t have organised a wheelchair until you showed up, so it’s no great shakes, if a little cheeky.

if you get a choice when you check in ask for 2 seats at the rear, as even though TC A330s are 3-3-3 in economy, the last couple of rows at the rear will be 2-3-2, one of the 2s will allow you privacy anda window, with good views being well aft of the wings

Thanks cloud9 for the reply, I see where you are coming from but you would still think that tcook would allow you to book if not only to make a bit of extra revenue for them, regardless who the aircraft is charted to, I also did ask about the premium section and again they said that no bookings are being taken for any seats, so I guess if you get these than you have struck lucky.

Guess we will have to turn up and early and see what’s what, but there again It isn’t uncommon that airlines pre allocate your seats well in advance of you checking in, this happen last year with Thomsonfly.

Rgds

Andy

Now first question, if we do get separated this is a bit unfair as I have offered to pay the extra but unable…

Whilst it is unfair that you may not be seated together, it is a cruise flight, so the cruise operator (whoever that is?) will have chartered Thomas Cook to operate the flight to BGI, so although it is operated by Thomas Cook, using a Thomas Cook aircraft, the airline cannot/will not pre-assign seats unless it is something that the cruise operator decides to offer that service to their customers.

As the advice that you were already given suggests, I would simply look to get to the airport as early as possible so that you can be assured to get seats together.

…what happens to the front section where they have there larger config 2+2+2 I think as it’s an a330, is it first come first served…

As this is a long-haul flight, I would have assumed the front of the aircraft will have a ‘premium’ cabin and thus will probably be fully booked already, although might be worth a call to the cruise operator to see if any upgrades are still available and how much they will be as again, as again I doubt that Thomas Cook will be able to help with this matter as they are literally the ‘third-party provider’ in these kind of situations.

Hope this helps.:)