bmuhlfelder

How common is it for an airline to give away your seat due to overbooking? I purchased two business class seats from British Airways for the the second leg of a flight,Vienna to Heathrow then Heathrow to EWR. When I couldn't check in online 24 hours before, I knew something was wrong. BA agents at Vienna said no problem we would get at seat assignment at Heathrow. However, without a seat assignment we couldn't even get through security. We were told we no longer had our seats due to overbooking - seats we had purchased 11 months prior! To be downgraded from business to economy did not sit well with my 77 year old, very tired husband. Just before boarding our business seats were "found". I wrote to British Airways to complain about our treatment and the whole process and even though I flew on June 18th and received a confirmation of receipt of my letter, I have yet to hear from British Airways! I used to think they were the best to fly to London. Who should I give my business to now?

agehall

Not being able to check in 24h before departure happens all the time. This can be because of a multitude of reasons.

Airlines overbook flights all the time. Nothing strange about that. In the end, it is fairly rare that EU airlines overbook to the extent that they have to deny passengers boarding - they know fairly well how many no-shows they will have and thus how many seats they can sell and still have a fair chance to get everyone that shows up a seat.

The fact that seats were found just before boarding shows that there were late no-shows and they could give you seats in business again.

As far as suggestions for other airlines, how about anyone but BA? AA does a fine job and so does most other major airlines.

Mwenenzi

Can be due to a need to physically check a passport and/or visa.

jday

I think AA will use BA for flights from Vienna to London

Overbooking is not uncommon as people have said.

DYKWIA

Lots of other options that don't route through London

Discus

Overselling is one thing, but lack of seats might also be duet to equipment change, malfunctioning seats on the plane, irr-ops/delays/cancellations etc.

Try getting out of an overbooking-situation with Norwegian Longhaul

My personal opinion - to little overbooking these days. 20 yrs ago I was traveling return to USA several times "for free" due to overbooking and compensations.

Cymro

Are there? On AA? Best I can think of is a train to Munich and then on to PHL.

An ITA search for a one-way with at least one AA flight doesn't suggest anything that doesn't route through LHR.

DYKWIA

Why does it need to be on AA?

rossmacd

Many other airlines outside of BA/AA

agehall

People got stuck on AA as I suggested it earlier, mostly because I thought the OP wanted to travel to the US. Within Europe, AA is obviously not a good choice.

corporate-wage-slave

Let me welcome you to Flyertalk and to the BA forum bmuhlfelder, it's good to see you here, and I imagine this was a very unpleasant experience for you, even if the seats were eventually found for you.

At this juncture it isn't clear what the problem behind this was, but what I can say that if you follow some of the advice given in this forum you can probably minimise any future issues in this area. Overbooking is, however, quite rare. There are a handful of West Africa flights where this is somewhat endemic, but apart from that there are often days at LHR where no-one is overbooked at all.

Had you been downgraded you would have had compensation for this. The one thing that I'm not clear about is that your wording implies you paid for the seat selection in CW. If this is the case, it would be particularly unusual to be downgraded.

I hope you will get a note of apology from BA in due course, but downgrading is almost as old as aviation. I imagine this wasn't spelled out to you, but you would also have had the option of travelling on a later EWR service in CW, or more realistically to have gone CW to JFK, where there is rarely an issue.

bmuhlfelder

That was the last flight of the day to EWR, our car was at EWR, and we were tired and ready to go home. LHR to EWR was actually our third leg that day as we had started the day flying from Slovenia to Vienna on a separate booking.

We have another flight to and from LHR coming up in August (on BA) again and I dread to think what could go wrong as we also are using LHR as a base to fly to and from cruise destinations. What really made this experience terrible was the insensitivity of the BA staff. They didn't understand that we weren't interested in compensation - We wanted comfort. And we basically wanted what we had paid for - why is that concept so difficult to understand!

corporate-wage-slave

Realistically, if there are no seats left on your service, then all that BA staff can do is put emphasis on the compensation issue. They can't magic up seats. Now they could try harder to find volunteers, as a general point, and it may be they had a feeling that some no-shows would provide you with seats - no-shows and overbooking are two sides of the same coin - and that is in fact what happened.

However for your future travels there are things you can do to minimise the risk. Broadly speaking:
- check you have a ticket number, easiest done in the BA App, and a factor if you have changed your bookings since you first reserved.
- check your Advance Passenger Information is up to date
- consider buying seat selection if you don't have status
- consider ordering special meals
- but above all, check in online at the first opportunity. If you have a connection, it may be best to check in for the first leg, then check in for the second leg separately, rather than not checking in at all
- if OLCI doesn't initially work, try again after a few hours, then call up; above all resist the temptation to do it all at the airport.
- it's not a bad idea to consider what your plan B could be, in terms of going to another airport or the next day.
None of the above is necessary, and well over 99% of passengers don't go anywhere near this problem, but if it is a concern, these are the things you can consider.

LTN Phobia

Actively asking for volunteers is good for everyone. Some people may do it cheaply (cheaper than the compensation for downgrade or IDB) because it might suit them, it doesn't upset them because they asked for it, and it saves upsetting people who don't want to be downgraded/denied boarding.

I can never figure out why they don't do it more proactively to be honest. If they still get on, good, nothing lost.

BrianWBrazil

How does overbooking operate? I can understand that more seats are sold than actually exist, but exactly who gets refused? Are these people on a special price ticket that carries a risk or are they general passengers who are shocked to learn they have no seat? I have several bookings on BA in the coming months. These have been paid in full, I have a ticket number, and can see a confirmed reservation against my name and flight on the BA site. Under what conditions would I ever be denied boarding on that basis?