I booked a flight to Orlando via NYC (JFK) for Xmas for myself, my wife, and her mother - all travelling together in WT+ (premium economy) on a single booking reference.

BA just opened up Avios availability for one business class seat on the first LHR-JFK flight so I used Avios to upgrade the mother in law. BA has split her booking from ours and allocated a separate booking ref number for her travel. I can reserve seats for the wife and myself for free on our original booking reference but BA now wants to charge me £70 to reserve a seat for my mother in law. A call to BAEC Silver line failed to resolve the issue.

Am I justified in feeling annoyed that BA refuses to let me (as a silver member) reserve a seat in advance that I paid for because an upgrade triggers the booking to be split and my mother in law has no BA status? If I hadn't made the upgrade (or if BA hadn't split our booking) I would have been able to reserve seats for all three of us well in advance!

First world problem I guess....