Originally Posted by
LeisureFirst
Well it still shows the same UD availability regardless of whether you have status or not.
And, indeed, it would be controversial not to as someone buying a J or C fare can indeed get a free choice from the UD seats regardless of status. Indeed, it's only Gold status that would make any difference as Silvers get exactly the same choice as full fare pax in all cabins. Maybe a P should be used to show those seats only available to silvers and full fare pax and available should mean available to everyone prepared to pay for the seat.
We tested this and when you put in a BA or OW frequent flyer account that has elite status, BA returns a different seat map. If that requires Gold level status, that very well may be the case as we tested it with Emerald OW status.
It's not up to us to decide what P is used for or not. BA either notes the seat as such or it doesn't, we have no information as to why a particular seat may be marked one attribute vs another.
Again, it would very helpful if you could email us a specific example so we can test scenarios with the new GDS we're about to switch to for seat maps.