Originally Posted by
oruvin
So... Called BA. Agent 1 said BA has no responsibility as it's JAL flight. Hang up, called again - BA Agent 2 said she can access seat map, but she can't change our sits from automatically assigned seats, the system is giving an error and advised to call JAL. So called JAL, they said they have no control over it as the flight is booked by BA and it's BA responsibility, at least until check in. Called BA again, Agent 3 said she cannot change seats (system doesn't let to do so) and said to call JAL as it's their flight anyway, and they should be able to whatever they want.
What next?
JAL is technically correct, it is the responsibility of the marketing carrier to assign seats, hence it is BA's responsibility. If you call BA with a JL coded flight you will get the same replies as here. The only difference is that JL webiste is normally cooperative for picking seats on JL code shares on BA, and the BA website is quite cooperative in assigning seats on JL code shares, even with a better selection that what you can get through JL.