Pay for Seat Selection on BA international business class?
Apr 27, 2018, 8:19 am
#556
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Gloucestershire
Programs: BA Gold (ex-GGL, maybe future Silver), Hilton Diamond
Posts: 6,199
Infrequent flyer here; my first flight in ten years (and my first flight ever on BA) will be in September.
I have an award trip (thank you, CSR sign-up bonus) for two people in Club World from Heathrow to Newark. If we do not pay for seats, are we unlikely to be able to sit together?
Does the quoted message mean that we could have transferred UR points to Avios and then booked this flight on AA and been able to reserve seats?
Thanks for help with the newbie questions.
I have an award trip (thank you, CSR sign-up bonus) for two people in Club World from Heathrow to Newark. If we do not pay for seats, are we unlikely to be able to sit together?
Does the quoted message mean that we could have transferred UR points to Avios and then booked this flight on AA and been able to reserve seats?
Thanks for help with the newbie questions.
Apr 27, 2018, 8:35 am
#557
Join Date: Jan 2015
Programs: None
Posts: 103
Apr 27, 2018, 9:07 am
#558
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: LHR, LGW
Programs: BAEC
Posts: 3,436
Hmm sounds like IT issues involved here. It's clearly all very frustrating for you. I would leave it for a bit longer or maybe setup a BA Exec account and try to link the booking to that account, if you haven't done so or maybe others with a bit more understanding of why this isn't working may help...?
Apr 27, 2018, 2:24 pm
#559
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: Aberdeenshire
Programs: BAEC Silver
Posts: 153
So can you please explain how the fee is protecting decent seats for status holders?
Apr 27, 2018, 2:34 pm
#560
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: LHR, LGW
Programs: BAEC
Posts: 3,436
Based on the frustrations (on FT) of having to pay for a seat, I’m guessing not many people pay the fees. My sister (non BA flyer) was pretty annoyed having to pay for 4 seats in WTP.
So I can see the seat fee as a barrier to keeping decent seats for status holders but my thoughts are based on a small evidence base...FT and family/friends.
Apr 27, 2018, 2:41 pm
#561
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges and Environmentally Friendly Travel
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: London, UK
Posts: 22,212
I believe there is a combination of controls that in practice keeps those sought after seats free until OLCI opens. A) the pricing tariff is balanced to curb demand, particularly those seats located towards the front of the cabin, and B) judicious seat blocking
Apr 27, 2018, 4:44 pm
#562
Suspended
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: DCA
Programs: UA US CO AA DL FL
Posts: 50,262
Infrequent flyer here; my first flight in ten years (and my first flight ever on BA) will be in September.
I have an award trip (thank you, CSR sign-up bonus) for two people in Club World from Heathrow to Newark. If we do not pay for seats, are we unlikely to be able to sit together?
Does the quoted message mean that we could have transferred UR points to Avios and then booked this flight on AA and been able to reserve seats?
Thanks for help with the newbie questions.
I have an award trip (thank you, CSR sign-up bonus) for two people in Club World from Heathrow to Newark. If we do not pay for seats, are we unlikely to be able to sit together?
Does the quoted message mean that we could have transferred UR points to Avios and then booked this flight on AA and been able to reserve seats?
Thanks for help with the newbie questions.
Apr 28, 2018, 8:55 am
#563
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: flyover country
Posts: 2,435
Thank you, Cymro, for your answer and advice.
Perhaps I phrased the question poorly. What I was trying to ask was how often a flight from Heathrow to Newark filled to the point that there were no adjacent seats remaining when it became possible to choose seats without a fee. The answer to that question exists, although perhaps no one on FlyerTalk has the answer and is willing to share it. Nonetheless, if I don't ask, it is almost certain that no one will answer it.
Six months before your flight? Absolutely no way that anybody can possibly predict whether you will find seats together. That will depend on which seats have been selected by the passengers who book and select seats between now and your flight date. Most of those people don't even know that they may consider flying on that date so can't even call them and ask !
Apr 28, 2018, 9:32 am
#564
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,808
Perhaps I phrased the question poorly. What I was trying to ask was how often a flight from Heathrow to Newark filled to the point that there were no adjacent seats remaining when it became possible to choose seats without a fee. The answer to that question exists, although perhaps no one on FlyerTalk has the answer and is willing to share it. Nonetheless, if I don't ask, it is almost certain that no one will answer it.
Apr 28, 2018, 3:14 pm
#565
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 2,660
Further, under "flight details" it is almost universally disclosed what meal service is going to be offered (Dinner, lunch, "meal", snack...). Lounge access on international flights of any sort (such as we're discussing here) always include lounge access... so again domestic matters are somewhat irrelevant to the original discussion. Many countries no longer even offer domestic business (apart from the US most I travel do NOT) so that's another red herring.
It's clear to me that you've totally missed the point that the OP is being subjected to $800 in charges that, if it were anything else on any other partner, most would expect to be more transparent.
Last edited by Schultzois; Apr 28, 2018 at 3:19 pm
Apr 28, 2018, 4:38 pm
#566
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
Programs: Mucci. Nothing else matters.
Posts: 38,644
But at least the option to select seats is now there for non-status holders. Remember what it was like in the immediately-preceding version of the seating policy?
Apr 29, 2018, 1:12 am
#567
FlyerTalk Evangelist, Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Somewhere between 0 and 13,000 metres high
Programs: AF/KL Life Plat, BA GGL+GfL, ALL Plat, Hilton Diam, Marriott Gold, blablablah, etc
Posts: 30,531
AFAIK international partners don't sell "basic" fares for domestic AA flights, just AA does, and they publish precisely the types of warnings that I advocate. As does BA for their HBO fares. And neither cross-sells to the other as a "business fare." You seem to forget we are talking about several thousand dollar minimum business class fares l
Further, under "flight details" it is almost universally disclosed what meal service is going to be offered (Dinner, lunch, "meal", snack...). Lounge access on international flights of any sort (such as we're discussing here) always include lounge access... so again domestic matters are somewhat irrelevant to the original discussion. Many countries no longer even offer domestic business (apart from the US most I travel do NOT) so that's another red herring.
It's clear to me that you've totally missed the point that the OP is being subjected to $800 in charges that, if it were anything else on any other partner, most would expect to be more transparent.
Further, under "flight details" it is almost universally disclosed what meal service is going to be offered (Dinner, lunch, "meal", snack...). Lounge access on international flights of any sort (such as we're discussing here) always include lounge access... so again domestic matters are somewhat irrelevant to the original discussion. Many countries no longer even offer domestic business (apart from the US most I travel do NOT) so that's another red herring.
It's clear to me that you've totally missed the point that the OP is being subjected to $800 in charges that, if it were anything else on any other partner, most would expect to be more transparent.
1) codeshares are often used on domestic itineraries. I may very well buy a F ticket on ba with the following routing:
15/6: LHR-JFK F op BA
18/6: JFK-MIA F op AA
24/6: MIA-LHR F op BA
in that scenario I would not be eligible to lounge access at JFK on my F itinerary.
2) i think you should have another look at booking websites on ba.com and Qatar, neither of which will specify what you consider to be ‘almost universally disclosed’.
And my point is not a purely theoretical one, I can tel’ You I have known many people genuinely surprised and shocked not to have a meal on a two hour flight in F and not to have lounge access when booked in paid F.
3) except for the example of basic that we can leave out if it makes you more comfortable, all others would occur in itineraries worth thousands and thousands in paid J (QR lounge access, etc) and in fact the ones pertaining to AA lounge access and onboard food can even occur in the most expensive itineraries possible, ie full fare paid F which obviously is not the case with seat selection.
So no, I’m not missing the points that you make about the costs of things or how frustrated someone might feel about it, but you are asking for a deliberately humiliating phrasing of the ‘unlike almost everyone else’ type which completely misses out the fact that other airlines also have their own idiosyncrasies which can equally shock, surprise, and upset people buying codeshares of thousands and in some cases even tends of thousands in business and first class.
the fact that ba’s seating policy uniquely upsets you does not make it uniquely idiosyncratic. A lot of other idiosyncratic choices (including good ones by the way like serving free actual Champagne in AF Y or formerly keeping two F seats per passenger on non retrofitted planes in LH F) can be made by airlines that set them apart.
Apr 29, 2018, 2:00 am
#568
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: London
Programs: BA Gold / OW Emerald
Posts: 753
Alright, here's a thing about seat selection. I'm pretty tall, and I have family overseas. Which means that as a student, or when I didn't earn a whole lot, I'd have to get economy tickets to visit them (boy am I looking forward to get a lie-flat seat this year).
I couldn't fly ANY airline with free seat selection because all the exit row / bulkhead seats were taken a few months out, most of the time. So instead, I picked another (cheaper) airline with paid seat selection, where, conveniently, I could pay for an exit row seat. Wow, shocker, I know.
I wouldn't disagree with a model where only better seats are for pay (say the first 10 rows of the cabin and anything with extra legroom), but that's not always how it is. I rarely fly with other people so I can see the benefit in that. But if you're travelling alone, what do you care?
Also, I get that it's annoying to pay for seats, but if you had flown any return in club world in the past year or two you'd be bronze. Just saying.
I couldn't fly ANY airline with free seat selection because all the exit row / bulkhead seats were taken a few months out, most of the time. So instead, I picked another (cheaper) airline with paid seat selection, where, conveniently, I could pay for an exit row seat. Wow, shocker, I know.
I wouldn't disagree with a model where only better seats are for pay (say the first 10 rows of the cabin and anything with extra legroom), but that's not always how it is. I rarely fly with other people so I can see the benefit in that. But if you're travelling alone, what do you care?
Also, I get that it's annoying to pay for seats, but if you had flown any return in club world in the past year or two you'd be bronze. Just saying.
Apr 29, 2018, 2:16 am
#569
FlyerTalk Evangelist, Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Somewhere between 0 and 13,000 metres high
Programs: AF/KL Life Plat, BA GGL+GfL, ALL Plat, Hilton Diam, Marriott Gold, blablablah, etc
Posts: 30,531
As a counter-factual, by the way, yesterday, I've had to book a late (early May) trip to the US in premium economy (the one cabin I dislike and almost never book) for two of us. I'm top tier with BA and AF which both had similar timings and connections and AF was about £200 cheaper. However, it only had seats in the middle block left on my days whilst BA still had a window-aisle/no neighbour pair in each direction. Guess which one I booked, and that was despite those being the last two tickets for sale in the cabin (now showing W0 E0 T0 after my purchase).
Now don't take me wrong - this is a zero sum game, so my relief to be able to find two seats I like in a full sold cabin as a GGL and (very unusually for me) highest bucket customer for one of the two ways symmetrically means that two people who booked their ticket earlier, albeit without status will be unhappy to find that they cannot get a window seat when they OLCI in a few days. Nevertheless, they 'could' have got those seats if they had valued them enough to pay for them.
If they chose not to, there is, perhaps, a logic in the choice that BA makes of who to please and who to disappoint that people can see even if they disagree with it. In this case, it happens on those occasions of a full cabin where of course, not everyone will have their ideal choice. Needless to say that in a much emptier cabin, even those who could not preselect will find seats that they will like anyway.
Now don't take me wrong - this is a zero sum game, so my relief to be able to find two seats I like in a full sold cabin as a GGL and (very unusually for me) highest bucket customer for one of the two ways symmetrically means that two people who booked their ticket earlier, albeit without status will be unhappy to find that they cannot get a window seat when they OLCI in a few days. Nevertheless, they 'could' have got those seats if they had valued them enough to pay for them.
If they chose not to, there is, perhaps, a logic in the choice that BA makes of who to please and who to disappoint that people can see even if they disagree with it. In this case, it happens on those occasions of a full cabin where of course, not everyone will have their ideal choice. Needless to say that in a much emptier cabin, even those who could not preselect will find seats that they will like anyway.
Last edited by orbitmic; Apr 29, 2018 at 3:42 pm
Apr 29, 2018, 2:11 pm
#570
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: Aberdeenshire
Programs: BAEC Silver
Posts: 153
The point I am trying to make is that the fee has very little to do with protecting the better seats for status holders.
I have just done a dummy booking in March as a guest on to Beijing on the 5th and returning on the 12th in business.
I can select any of the seats in the business cabin (every one is available on both legs).
Row 6 is priced at £76
Rows 7,10 & 11 are £69
Rows 12 & 13 are £62
If forking out for a business seat and paying to choose a seat, £14 more expensive is not going to stop me picking a better seat.