hcuk94

I'm flying CE to Marseille with my parents in August. Due to me not knowing if I could make it initially, I am in a seperate booking to the parents.

I'm now booked as well, and of course being a silver I can reserve my seats. Problem is, parents can't, and I can't reserve the seats for them, as they're on a seperate booking.

I was wondering if it's possible somehow for the bookings to be merged, so that BA view us as a single travelling party?

I tried the Twitter route but they basically refused to be of any assistance at all. Even after I asked them how I could make sure I was sitting with my parents, they just said I can reserve seats at OLCI but they can't promise availability of 3 seats together as we're in seperate bookings.

I know that's just the way it is, but what if, for example, my parents were nervous flyers and didn't want to fly without me? And not meaning to sound DYKWIA here, but we've paid for 3 Club Europe tickets and I'm a silver - it seems rather pants that BA won't help out in making sure we get seats together?

Seat reservations are Ł22 per person per journey, which makes a total of Ł88 to reserve seats for my parents... seems a bit of an unfair penalty simply for having 2 booking refs...

Any advice as to whether there's anything I can do would be much appreciated.

Paralytic

You can't merge bookings. If you were Gold, you could link (TCP) the bookings and select seats across both. The only way to ensure you sit together is to pay for your parents seats in advance of online checkin.

If your parents were nervous and needed to sit beside you, then they'd need to decide if Ł88 was worth the risk of not getting seats together at checkin.

And I'm afraid you did sound a bit DYKWIA. A Silver travelling with two non-status passengers are inconsequential to BA. Don't fret though, individually, most Golds are inconsequential to BA too.

nux

You can't merge the two bookings. You could cancel and rebook but this would likely be more expensive than just paying for seat selection or alternatively waiting until T-24 and try to select seats together.

hcuk94

Feh.. thanks anyway both - looks like we'll be shelling out for seat reservations then, as I'd rather make sure they were near me.

It's kind of irritating that it can be done, but only for Golds.. I would have hoped being able to sit together would be a basic feature of a premium cabin :/

windowontheAside

Given the seating in CE is 2+2, you can't really all sit together anyway. Of course you could sit across the aisle from your folks and maybe that's worth Ł88 for peace of mind.

There is a risk that you can pay to seat them near to the seat you've selected, but then either you or they get seat shifted. Maybe it's not a huge risk, but it does happen.

The CE cabin is rarely very large, so even if you don't pay you wouldn't be very far away and if they're next to each other maybe that would be enough? Best case at OLCI you can pick three seats near each other anyway.

hcuk94

We're looking to book A, C and D basically - but yes, appreciate that isn't really 'together'.

I'm sure we'll manage fine, I was just hoping they'd be able to sort something a bit easier as per if we'd booked together

corporate-wage-slave

On a short hop like that in CE it's not worth paying for seats. Leave it until OLCI and it should work out fine. I have sometimes been the only CE passenger on that route.

Dave Noble

If that was the case , then their booking would only have been made once you knew you were going and then all 3 could have been on a single reservation

BA will help - just pay for seat assignments if selecting seats in advance is that critical an issue

hcuk94

Thanks CWS - I'm sure it'll be fine.