[Qantas International] Online check-in seat map lockout.

[Qantas International] Online check-in seat map lockout.

A friend of mine cannot select her seat via online check in for QF35 departing tomorrow afternoon. She can only nominate a preference for window or aisle.

Neither she nor I have ever encountered a situation where we've been locked out of the seat map except a few hours out of departure.

I suspect the flight has been oversold and therefore locked out. I have advised her to call Qantas tonight as soon as possible and to proceed to the airport as early as possible tomorrow morning.

Is there any other possible reason why this has occurred and/or anything else we've missed as a possible course of action?

Your guess is correct mate. It is quite oversold in all cabins. 

How do you know? ExpertFlyer? I ask this because the call centre refuses to tell us if it's oversold and they gave me the usual chanting about connections and seat requests and lots of other garbled nonsense.

I have been locked out before, and it was due to an aircraft change (downgrade) on a Mel - Per flight from an A332 to B738.

Hmm, unless I pay $25 per sector, as I did, when I was a PS, I could not select seats, and the only way was to either pay the $25 or to do checkin at the airport, and ask what was available, when I booked in QFi Y.

Business, I was able to select seats I wanted.

Does the friend have status?  SG on QF would have free seat selection, but anything lower than that, you or the friend would have to pay for the seat selection.

PS has seat selection, and this is within OLCI window but even the call centre cannot select a seat for her. I know for a fact that the call centre will let you select a seat for free if you can within T-24 even if OLCI has not yet opened, because I've done it before.