Rivarix

I checked my ticket and it was C.

Thx for the info - it's helpful and something that i'll keep in mind the next time i fly CW. I looked at all my previous trips w/ BA and they were all C hence why i assumed it was always included.

aksai oiler

Seat shifting is becoming an all too frequent occurrence. I travelled to Beijing a few days ago from Malaga. It happened to me on both flights and I was severely hacked off, because in both cases I was re-assigned inferior seats. At Malaga, after some discussion I was called in the SalaVIP and moved, as in this case there was no aircraft change nor cabin change.

FrancisA

I find the tales of seat shifting here pretty unacceptable.

... and to ask for someone to be moved out of a seat because you fancy it - the mind boggles. I always thought the polite way was to ask the person in the seat you want if they will swap with you and only then if you were offering a better seat.

BA clearly state that they reserve the right to move seat assignments for operational reasons (which are not defined). I have always assumed this to mean broken seat, defective IFE, aircraft change, trim etc. Sitting people or families together or requests for the best seats have never figured on my radar as valid reasons and I don't think that they should.

If this happened to me and the agent would not move me back. I would definitely ask to see the station manager for an explanation and satisfactory resolution to the problem. If it were a case that someone had asked for me to be booted out, I would expect them to be returned to their original seat or me to be upgraded to F.

The only time I was moved from UD to LD I had a polite and friendly chat with the station manager at EZE and jokingly said that I didn't mind downstairs as long as it was in the pointy bit. To my surprise he said I can only upgrade you to F if you accept that you cannot have canapés between EZE and GRU! Very difficult choice to make

BasilBush

One slightly mean thing about BA's seat selection policy is that if you make a First redemption booking then you get free seat selection on the long haul leg but you still have to pay for seats in any (non-F) feeder flights (assuming non-Gold/Silver). Eg if you book MAN-LHR-LAX you still have to pay for seat selection on the MAN-LHR leg. It's not a lot of money, but BA would gain a lot of goodwill if they threw this in for free on an F booking.

highpeaklad

We noticed that last year. It was £10 per person each way MAN-LHR so we didn't bother.
This year connecting to CW redemption it's gone down to £5.

MNManInKen

So you get the F leg for peanuts, yet you want even more to be thrown in for free? Is it never enough?

angatol

.....

MNManInKen

Quite! Might just do a lot of shopping at Tesco.

zanskar

I agree with this. In our case we had already checked in and the seat shift to inferior seats took place between then and the airport. If we had only had hand luggage and had gone straight through missing bag drop we would only have found out this on boarding by which time it would have been too late to do anything about it.

LCY8737

In which case Tesco paid BA for a F ticket. Avios are just a different currency.

MNManInKen

The moan was not about not getting their F ticket. It was about further perks.

LCY8737

Further perks on top of what?

MNManInKen

See posts 19 and 20.

LCY8737

Oh dear... Indeed... Sorry, still very early in the morning...

BasilBush

I take the point about my redemption example (which was illustrative - I have to admit that I do qualify for free seat selection)! But presumably the same applies for any non-status pax making a Club/First paid booking with a domestic leg. You still have to pay for seat allocation on the domestic sector.

This must seem odd to an infrequent traveller faced with a choice (say) of flying MAN-DXB-XXX on a nice shiny widebody with through seat allocation, or paying BA to route via LHR and then being expected to pay extra for seat allocation.

The only point that I was making is that BA are (officially at least) happy to extend the class of service benefits to things such as lounge access (such that any pax connecting onto a premium flight at LHR can access the lounge at, say, MAN), but that when it comes to seat choice there are different rules for each sector of the booking.