Comments on: British Airways limits advance seat selection even further

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:10:16 +0000

The real problem with their seat assignment policy is that the policy is “hidden”. You can’t find out the policy exists until after purchasing the ticket. Just purchased business class RT SFO LHR and I have to say I went balistic when I tried to reserve seats. I would NOT have purchased the ticket had I known the BA policy. Fair to have any policy you want provided it is known before you take my money. Next time it’s Virgin Atlantic.

By: George Lapis

George Lapis — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:27:32 +0000

I booked business class award travel through AA on BA for me and my wife. For some reasons the agent put our tickets on different records. Since I have Platinum status on AA they would let me reserve my seat, but not for my wife because she is on a separate records. Calling BA did not do any good. If I had any options at this point I would definitely cancel this reservation. It will be long time before I travel on BA next time.

By: uncleorb

uncleorb — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 06:42:25 +0000

An interesting discussion which has proved quite useful for me. I do not enjoy flying, and I was just researching various flight options for Vancouver to Paris. I was looking at converting Avion points to BA points so I could then use the BA points to upgrade my seats to World Traveller plus. Without advance seat seletion, all these other research options are useless. I have no intention of spending $2400 and then using 50000 points for an upgrade to get WT+, without knowing what seats I am going to end up with next April, or whether I get to sit with my wife. I will go with Lufthansa or Air Canada or somebody else that allows me to select a seat. Thanks to this post, and idiotic management at British Airways, they have just cost themselves a sale.

By: Mark Ashley

Mark Ashley — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 14:31:24 +0000

Honestly, Lebza, your argument doesn’t make any sense.

You say the problem is “people book seats on-line and later cancel” — but most of the people who tried to get a seat reservation were on non-refundable fares. The only seats that CAN book seats on British Airways nowadays are the fully-refundable and readily-cancellable fares at the top tier of each booking class.

In other words, the people who are most likely to cancel their flights are the only ones who get to choose their seats. How does this help anyone?

Glad BA works out for you, though.

By: Lebza

Lebza — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:23:08 +0000

I would love to applaud BA for a wonderful job they have done in stopping on-line seat reservation. This is splendid because people book seats on-line and later cancel. To the disadvantage of poeple like myself this has helped us alot. To you who are moaning, please wake up. it is fair to us all to be allocated seats at the airport when we are all vissible to the BA checkpoints. stop this nonsense of trying to be smart by uttering bullshit on-line about BA. I use BA for bussiness abroad and find this very comforting.therefore, if you guys feel you dont want to use BA. good-luck to you because BA will still be full in all its flights without you people.Bye

By: Upgrades and Downgrades — July 31, 2007 — Inflight radio, international arrivals, and Kip Hawley explains the liquid menace » Upgrade: Travel Better

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:41:45 +0000

[…] Setting aside the culture clash: None of this would have happened if British Airways would actually allow advance seat assignments for passengers on fares lower than the most expensive tickets. (Given their seating concerns, I […]

By: Sheesh Gulati

Sheesh Gulati — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 06:55:54 +0000

My wife travels Vigin Atlantic Business Class and selects her seat at time of booking. I have to wait until 24 hrs before departure for my BA business class seat selection

My wife is a Silver Card holder on Virgin Atlantic after flying 35,000 miles, I am still a Blue card holder on BA after flying 50,000 miles

Something wrong somewhere

By: anette

anette — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 05:42:24 +0000

I also had this experience: waited until 24 hrs before the flight, then was unable to pick a seat (website wouldn’t let me). I’ll never again fly BA if I can help it.

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 01:29:06 +0000

We booked our business class travel reservations with BA 9 months in advance to make sure we could go on what for us is the trip of a lifetime, yet we won’t know until 24 hours ahead of time whether or not we have a seat. This is incredibly enfuriating. We are at the mercy of a lottery and have to hope that “more important” travelers don’t fill up the cabin before we can even try for a seat.

By: Doug Esplin

Doug Esplin — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 11:52:35 +0000

BA has dropped to the bottom of my list. I just spent hours (well 90+ minutes) on hold with them to try to get seats for my young daughter and elderly parents–yes I waited until 24 hours like they told me to. but now they tell me that seats will only be available at the airport. This is the last time I willingly fly BA.

By: Upgrade: Travel Better » Blog Archive » $235 to check a second bag on British Airways

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:06:44 +0000

[…] British Airways is seemingly doing everything it can to tarnish its own image in the eyes of consumers. They won’t let you make seating reservations unless you’re on a full-fare ticket — even discounted business class travelers can’t get a seat assignment. They jerked their customers around during the recently threatened strike — flights are on! cancelled! back on! — throwing thousands of travel plans into disarray. And now this. At this rate, upright “seating” may soon be a reality after all. […]

By: TomCayman

TomCayman — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 03:11:56 +0000

Vigorous debate on this on the BA Board on FlyerTalk, but this will put BA at an even bigger disadvantage to AA’s FF programme.

I think AA has seat assignement nailed. Anyone can assign seats priot to ticketing, but only elite Frequent Flyers get the pick of the best seats at the time of ticketing. Simply, easy, and effectively meets customer expectations.

I was beginning to use BA more and more (I like the WT+ seats), but the difficulty in getting and maintaining frequent flyer status (compared to AA) and now this seat assignement nonsense…. hallo again AA !