Why are rows 10-21 blocked out on a VA A330 on ExpertFlyer?

Why are rows 10-21 blocked out on a VA A330 on ExpertFlyer?

After booking, I'm comparing the VA "select my seat" page, and the same flight on ExpertFlyer. Rows 10-21 are completely "occupied" on ExpertFlyer but virtually empty on the VA site (so I'm free to select almost any of them), while rows 22-42 match occupancy exactly on both sites. What's the deal with rows 10-21?

Hello,

The reason you cannot see Rows 10-21 on EF is because those rows are considered 'premium zones' meaning Velocity Silvers can access a few, Golds can access more, and Platinums can access every row. You are most likely logged into the Virgin Australia website and it allows you to see all rows given your Platinum status. The way to make this the same on Expert Flyer is to do the following:

1. Go into 'My Account' in Expert Flyer.

2. Click on the 'Preferences' tabs

3. Towards the bottom, you will see boxes for frequent flyer numbers.

4. Enter your frequent flyer number in the box for Virgin Australia and select VA from the list.

5. Then click on 'save' and test it out.

After doing this, you will be able to see all seats such as those blocked out on the A330 (10-21) and 737 (3-10) as well as on the 777 I believe. Its great that out of the very few airlines allowing this functionality on Expert Flyer, VA is one of them.

Thanks again Sean! That worked great. It now correctly shows only 3 seats in the first 11 rows as occupied (so far)

Hopefully my upgrade bid is accepted and this is just an academic exercise, but it is still interesting to see how the system works.