Advance seat selection not available on BA 'operated' flight
Jun 29, 2016, 9:41 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: London
Programs: AA Lifetime Platinum
Posts: 329
Advance seat selection not available on BA 'operated' flight
Very annoyed with this. Booked IB LHR-OVD. As OW Sapphire should be able to select my seat in advance. IB's site redirects to BA's website as the flight is 'operated by BA'. But once there you get an error. Actually flight is operated by IBX crew on IBX metal. Why this messy business anyway?
In the past I could get this fixed by call centre. This time the IB call centre told me to contact BA. BA's call centre told me to contact IB. Tweeted IB and told to contact BA. Tweeted BA and ignored.
In the past I could get this fixed by call centre. This time the IB call centre told me to contact BA. BA's call centre told me to contact IB. Tweeted IB and told to contact BA. Tweeted BA and ignored.
Jun 29, 2016, 10:19 am
#2
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
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I went to Asturias just over a month ago, and I've already managed to forget how I did it. As you say it has a BA prime code, operated by Iberia Express from T5 (and causes no end of grief with the customer service agents: "wherezattt??").
Judging from my email trail I think I did it via RJ.com, using the IB PNR, so can you give that a go and let us know? I had a 125 BA coded ticket. £44.89 one way - I couldn't complain. Then at T5 the agents seem able to move you to other seats if necessary.
I stayed in Aviles, lovely town, greatly recommended. The airport serves two other settlements thereby, Oviedo and Gijón, those these two are bit further off. Quite a unique part of Spain: hilly, green, lots of forests, wild horses, hill sheep, neither Basque nor Galician (where I am today). Has its own gastronomy, of which they are justifiably proud.
Small and efficient airport, if a bit long in the tooth, given that most of Spain's airports are gleemingly modern. No lounge! You can buy very inexpensive local cider (sidra) airside which went down extremely well. 1.50€ for 0.7 litres. It needs to be served in an unusual way - hold the bottle a long way from the glass, start close in so you don't spill it, then pour slowly, moving the bottle to above your head so that the sidra falls 1.5 metres into the glass.
Judging from my email trail I think I did it via RJ.com, using the IB PNR, so can you give that a go and let us know? I had a 125 BA coded ticket. £44.89 one way - I couldn't complain. Then at T5 the agents seem able to move you to other seats if necessary.
I stayed in Aviles, lovely town, greatly recommended. The airport serves two other settlements thereby, Oviedo and Gijón, those these two are bit further off. Quite a unique part of Spain: hilly, green, lots of forests, wild horses, hill sheep, neither Basque nor Galician (where I am today). Has its own gastronomy, of which they are justifiably proud.
Small and efficient airport, if a bit long in the tooth, given that most of Spain's airports are gleemingly modern. No lounge! You can buy very inexpensive local cider (sidra) airside which went down extremely well. 1.50€ for 0.7 litres. It needs to be served in an unusual way - hold the bottle a long way from the glass, start close in so you don't spill it, then pour slowly, moving the bottle to above your head so that the sidra falls 1.5 metres into the glass.
Jun 29, 2016, 3:32 pm
#4
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
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Ah, it may be different in that case, if purchased via IB. But the seating in RJ is cunningly hidden under Services Detail in the list of links below the top bar code.
Jun 30, 2016, 5:14 am
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: London
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Posts: 329
Services detail has not seat selection facility. Reply from BA:
"We're sorry that you've been advised different things, David. We've checked your booking and your flight is operated by Iberia Express. We don't operate this route at all. The airline that you are flying with is responsible for booking your seats. We don't even have access to the seat maps. You will need to go back to Iberia and advise them you are flying on their aircraft. We're sorry to disappoint you."
This is the response I got from IB:
Hi David, the flight is not operated by Iberia Express, but by British Airways, we can't assign a seat on a flight we don't operate. You must insist with BA. Regards.
This problem seems to affect a lot of BA/IB/IBX flights UK-Spain. Surely someone at IAG can deal with this...
"We're sorry that you've been advised different things, David. We've checked your booking and your flight is operated by Iberia Express. We don't operate this route at all. The airline that you are flying with is responsible for booking your seats. We don't even have access to the seat maps. You will need to go back to Iberia and advise them you are flying on their aircraft. We're sorry to disappoint you."
This is the response I got from IB:
Hi David, the flight is not operated by Iberia Express, but by British Airways, we can't assign a seat on a flight we don't operate. You must insist with BA. Regards.
This problem seems to affect a lot of BA/IB/IBX flights UK-Spain. Surely someone at IAG can deal with this...
Jun 30, 2016, 6:50 am
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: UK
Programs: Mucci, BA, AF
Posts: 10,129
Seat selection on IB coded, "BA operated" flights LHR-Spain almost never works. If it's BA5xx operated by Iberia, then it's fine on BA.com. If it's IB3xxx operated by BA5xx operated by Iberia, then you might as well forget it... unless RJ works (but I haven't managed to do that since the new website came in).
Jul 2, 2016, 5:10 pm
#7
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: London
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Posts: 329
Update: problem fixed by IB's twitter team after I forwarded them BA twitter team's reply. Now I have written to them about another booking... But if they have to do this contorted IB operated by BA operated by IB crap, why not fix the seatmap situation? Surely there is also revenue to be earned from these who will pay for the seats.
Jul 2, 2016, 5:44 pm
#8
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: The Netherlands
Programs: BA, KLM, Alitalia
Posts: 99
Didn't know there was a direct flight from LHR to Asturias!
My wife is from there, born in Gijon. It's a beautiful part of Spain. We tend to fly to Bilbao and rent a car and drive there or fly to Madrid and connect there to Oviedo.
As CWS say's very green, hilly, empty roads and great food, I enjoy going there.
My wife is from there, born in Gijon. It's a beautiful part of Spain. We tend to fly to Bilbao and rent a car and drive there or fly to Madrid and connect there to Oviedo.
As CWS say's very green, hilly, empty roads and great food, I enjoy going there.
Jul 3, 2016, 1:14 am
#9
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 6,349
Services detail has not seat selection facility. Reply from BA:
"We're sorry that you've been advised different things, David. We've checked your booking and your flight is operated by Iberia Express. We don't operate this route at all. The airline that you are flying with is responsible for booking your seats. We don't even have access to the seat maps. You will need to go back to Iberia and advise them you are flying on their aircraft. We're sorry to disappoint you."
This is the response I got from IB:
Hi David, the flight is not operated by Iberia Express, but by British Airways, we can't assign a seat on a flight we don't operate. You must insist with BA. Regards.
This problem seems to affect a lot of BA/IB/IBX flights UK-Spain. Surely someone at IAG can deal with this...
"We're sorry that you've been advised different things, David. We've checked your booking and your flight is operated by Iberia Express. We don't operate this route at all. The airline that you are flying with is responsible for booking your seats. We don't even have access to the seat maps. You will need to go back to Iberia and advise them you are flying on their aircraft. We're sorry to disappoint you."
This is the response I got from IB:
Hi David, the flight is not operated by Iberia Express, but by British Airways, we can't assign a seat on a flight we don't operate. You must insist with BA. Regards.
This problem seems to affect a lot of BA/IB/IBX flights UK-Spain. Surely someone at IAG can deal with this...
Jul 4, 2016, 12:38 am
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: London
Programs: AA Lifetime Platinum
Posts: 329
Didn't know there was a direct flight from LHR to Asturias!
My wife is from there, born in Gijon. It's a beautiful part of Spain. We tend to fly to Bilbao and rent a car and drive there or fly to Madrid and connect there to Oviedo.
As CWS say's very green, hilly, empty roads and great food, I enjoy going there.
My wife is from there, born in Gijon. It's a beautiful part of Spain. We tend to fly to Bilbao and rent a car and drive there or fly to Madrid and connect there to Oviedo.
As CWS say's very green, hilly, empty roads and great food, I enjoy going there.
Jul 5, 2016, 2:35 am
#11
Join Date: Jan 2000
Programs: Latinpass Million Miler. BA Gold.
Posts: 3,544
Seat selection on IB coded, "BA operated" flights LHR-Spain almost never works. If it's BA5xx operated by Iberia, then it's fine on BA.com. If it's IB3xxx operated by BA5xx operated by Iberia, then you might as well forget it... unless RJ works (but I haven't managed to do that since the new website came in).
I managed to change the outbound ones (as it is a BA5xx code), but not the return ones - it takes me to Iberia.com where you can't change the seats. Any solution other than calling - or is calling not going to work either?
Jul 5, 2016, 3:31 am
#12
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
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Have you tried RJ or Qantas? You could also try the Iberia App, making sure you have your BAEC number in before looking at the seats.
Jul 27, 2016, 4:28 pm
#15
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: The Netherlands
Programs: BA, KLM, Alitalia
Posts: 99
Sharing my experience, I booked through BA LHR-OVD got seats 6A, 6F and for the return flight 8A, 8F. I still like my wife and would prefer to sit next to her on these flights.
MMB redirects you to Iberia seat selection that then tells you you cant select a seat. MMB also gives a booking code for Iberia express (the ones that actually flies you there), but the code does nothing on there site.
Time to pick up the phone...
My wife is spanish so we called Iberia. First they tell us it is an BA flight and we should call them, not accepting that we pressed on doing the DYKWIA bla bla and what ever we could think off. This resulted in a long conferation, with a lot of pleas hold etc. In the end they offerd to change our seat for $45,- each leg.
Even our request for a working booking refference so we could change our seats online our selfs (paying) was denied. We declined there offer.
Next day I called BA using the dutch number got I think an aussie agent.
I explained the situation and that Iberia wasn't helping. He was on the ball, asked what seats we wanted, he put us on hold as he was going to contact Iberia. After a couple of minutes it was sorted. Great job by the agent.
The communication or technical problem is at Iberia, but BA agent handeld it correct by solving it as they are the once selling me the ticket and conditions. I was impressed with his speed and the result. I guess this issue comes down to the luck of the draw and which agent anwsers your call.
MMB redirects you to Iberia seat selection that then tells you you cant select a seat. MMB also gives a booking code for Iberia express (the ones that actually flies you there), but the code does nothing on there site.
Time to pick up the phone...
My wife is spanish so we called Iberia. First they tell us it is an BA flight and we should call them, not accepting that we pressed on doing the DYKWIA bla bla and what ever we could think off. This resulted in a long conferation, with a lot of pleas hold etc. In the end they offerd to change our seat for $45,- each leg.
Even our request for a working booking refference so we could change our seats online our selfs (paying) was denied. We declined there offer.
Next day I called BA using the dutch number got I think an aussie agent.
I explained the situation and that Iberia wasn't helping. He was on the ball, asked what seats we wanted, he put us on hold as he was going to contact Iberia. After a couple of minutes it was sorted. Great job by the agent.
The communication or technical problem is at Iberia, but BA agent handeld it correct by solving it as they are the once selling me the ticket and conditions. I was impressed with his speed and the result. I guess this issue comes down to the luck of the draw and which agent anwsers your call.