U-Turn on seating policy!!

[WDH]

Originally Posted by bpk6h

FANTASTIC! Worked like a charm today...called BA, they confirmed the new modification to the seating policy. I gave both PNRs for two different upcoming trips and was told the info would be passed to special services and to give it about 24 hrs for the seat to show up on ba.com. well, only 5 hours later the seat assignments are there online. Thanks to all at BA for listening!

Just tried this too and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works after reaching special services. Not sure why the exec club staff can't make the change themselves.
They moved my seat (which I could have done myself!) but still couldn't move my friends seat (bluecard). They told me that they have to put some sort of code word into the booking before sending the request to special services.

[seanp7]

Originally Posted by G-BOAC

Unless your companion is on the same PNR as you (in which case he should be able to get a seat automatically in MMB), this latest change means nothing to you. Reading Bukhara's post, it states this is for BA Premier/Gold and oneworld equivalents only (i.e. Emeralds), not BA Silvers (and thus oneworld Sapphire).

Thanks for clarifying this. I fly JFK-LHR next Friday and the entire upper deck is full - I'm confirmed in 62K and partner is unassigned. Guess we will have to move downstairs at OLCI

[anabolism]

Originally Posted by WDH

Just tried this too and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works after reaching special services. Not sure why the exec club staff can't make the change themselves.
They moved my seat (which I could have done myself!) but still couldn't move my friends seat (bluecard). They told me that they have to put some sort of code word into the booking before sending the request to special services.

Did it work?

[bronco122]

Quick Question.

I have a friend who is currently blue with 560 tier points. They will be silver after their next flight. They currently have 7 flights booked in the future where (since they are blue) cannot preselect seats at this time.

Will the pre-selection open up for them after their next flight and they get silver status - or will their (blue) status at booking hold for them and they will need to wait until OLCI?

Logic seems that seat selection would open up - but logic isnt always the way things go!


Thanks,

Bronco

[LHR Tim]

It will depend. In general the BA systems seem pretty good at recognising your status once it registers in the system. It will do it mid-trip.

Of course your friend will need to make sure the flights post straight away.

[Teece]

It did when I turned silver last year.

[anabolism]

Originally Posted by Bukhara

There has been no u-turn on the seating policy, but a modicum of common sense has prevailed so that the Gold/Prems and infants can use the TCP thingy again for pre-seating requests when their siginificant other and/or brats have been seated on a separate PNR.

I'm a OW Emerald traveling on a paid fare; my partner is traveling with me on an award ticket. I called both the U.S. and U.K. Executive Club numbers and they both told me the policy had not changed and there was no way to pre-assign seats. The U.S. agent put me on hold for 25 minutes waiting for a supervisor to pick up, and then told me the supervisor told me to read the seating policy on the ba.com web site. The U.K. agent said such a change had been discussed but was not in effect. He said he'd welcome the change as it would help him a lot. He said the BA intranet site only had discussion of the change as a possibility, but not as anything that had happened.

[Bukhara]

Originally Posted by anabolism

I'm a OW Emerald traveling on a paid fare; my partner is traveling with me on an award ticket. I called both the U.S. and U.K. Executive Club numbers and they both told me the policy had not changed and there was no way to pre-assign seats. The U.S. agent put me on hold for 25 minutes waiting for a supervisor to pick up, and then told me the supervisor told me to read the seating policy on the ba.com web site. The U.K. agent said such a change had been discussed but was not in effect. He said he'd welcome the change as it would help him a lot. He said the BA intranet site only had discussion of the change as a possibility, but not as anything that had happened.

You shouldn't need to do this, but I'll give you the step by step guide so you can direct Uninformed Agent to relevant info:

1. Go to 'Business Tools Quick Links' on the Contact BA intranet page
2. Select 'S' for seating
3. Click on 'New Seating Policy'
4. Click 'Advance Seating process for Infant/Gold/Premier with a TCP'
5. Uninformed Agent should now be suitably put in their place. Direct Uninformed Agent to the 'oneworld equivalents' comment in the first sentence if they query your AA status.

[rothsteg]

I'm traveling CW On BA in October with my wife and with AA Plat status and no BA status, kept being told that 24 hour OLCI was my only option. When I learned of the new policy a few weeks ago, I called and although the agent tried to be helpful, she couldn't get the map to load. With this new info I called again and got the same response. I then gave the line by line instructions from Bukhara's post and the agent went off line twice and finally said she'd have to call me back. Somewhat to my surprise, she did ten minutes later, said she'd got it to work and, presto, BA ended up working like a normal airline.

[G-BOAC]

Originally Posted by rothsteg

I'm traveling CW On BA in October with my wife and with AA Plat status and no BA status, kept being told that 24 hour OLCI was my only option. When I learned of the new policy a few weeks ago, I called and although the agent tried to be helpful, she couldn't get the map to load. With this new info I called again and got the same response. I then gave the line by line instructions from Bukhara's post and the agent went off line twice and finally said she'd have to call me back. Somewhat to my surprise, she did ten minutes later, said she'd got it to work and, presto, BA ended up working like a normal airline.

Not sure I understand this, rothsteg. Your 'Profile:' says you're an ExPlat but reading the above it seems to imply you're a Plat? In either case as it stands, you should be able to select a seat automatically with your number in the booking due to them being oneworld Emerald and Sapphire respectively. Bukhara's post refers to a TCP (link) applicable only to Emerald (e.g ExPlat) pax on separate bookings so people can get seated together. If you got that done and you're a Plat, you got lucky and they bent the rules. Or maybe I'm missing something?

[anabolism]

Originally Posted by Bukhara

You shouldn't need to do this, but I'll give you the step by step guide so you can direct Uninformed Agent to relevant info

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it.

I was finally able to call BA and have them assign seats for my partner. The agent put in the request and a few hours later I checked his booking online and it had the correct seats.

[ella2001]

This also worked for me yesterday (see separate thread). My son and I were on separate PNRs to New York this weekend as I was booked on business by company travel agent and he was on miles redemption. I could allocate a seat for me but not for him. When I booked him three weeks ago I was told nothing could be done. Yesterday I called and it was fixed in minutes. I had to call though, still couldn't allocate his seat on line.

[BahrainLad]

Originally Posted by bronco122

Will the pre-selection open up for them after their next flight and they get silver status - or will their (blue) status at booking hold for them and they will need to wait until OLCI?

Logic seems that seat selection would open up - but logic isnt always the way things go!

It *should* open up automatically, but sometimes you need a call to Web Support to get them to remove your number from each booking and re-apply it in order for MMB to accept you have moved up a tier.

[expatboy]

Originally Posted by Bukhara

There has been no u-turn on the seating policy, but a modicum of common sense has prevailed so that the Gold/Prems and infants can use the TCP thingy again for pre-seating requests when their siginificant other and/or brats have been seated on a separate PNR

Thanks as always for the info and insight Bukhara ...a shame that the 3 agents I spoke to on this either asked suspiciously where I heard this from or just claimed they had no knowledge of this and reiterated the OLCI garbage.

As I understand the Internal Message, it means that pax with infants or Golds/Prems (e.g. Mrs EB & the infant) can request a TCP with another booking, and the other booking (i.e. one without an infant in my case; me) will have a seat assigned at that time next to or as close as possible to the seats requested in the infant PNR. Our 2 bookings are already linked but all agents have so far said that there's nothing more they can do - I either have to get status or OLCI and hope for the best. Hmmm. AskBA#39 suggests that preallocations happens at T-72 for linked bookings where children are present but makes no mention of infants.

[Mini-rant:]
I'm lucky that the outbound will tip me into Silver but that's not the point! That night flight back to BOM is always pretty much full in CW.
[/Mini-rant]

[ExtraInRedShirt]

Here is a BA site that that references the children/infant policy, but which does not mention the "Gold/Prem gets to help out their spouse/partner/travel companion" policy.
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...y/public/en_us

I'm travelling with my no-status wife & 2 children (2-11 years old). We are all on seperate PNRs. My reading of this thread and BA site says that at 3 days prior, my kids should be assigned seats. however, it doesn't seem that my wife will. For that, I'll need to do OLCI at 23:59 and hope for the best.

I'm Sapphire (AA Plat) which I know helps me but does nada for the family.

The thing I'm missing (and the question) is ... How do I go about linking our PNRs? Call BA? Call my travel agent?