A seating dilemma
 

I'm due to travel with 2 colleagues in a couple of weeks' time, all three of us are on separate bookings.

I've put myself in 2C (BA CityFlyer E190 front row with 4 miles of leg room), but I'd like my colleagues to come join me if possible.

As I understand it, although not overly well documented, as a gold I can select seats for others travelling with me, even on separate booking refs.

I phoned the gold line (Manchester FYI) and the agent seemed doubtful at first that she could do this due to 'data protection'. I gave her my booking ref and she then told me that because it's a travel agent booking, she can't do seat allocations at all and that I'd have to speak to my travel agent.

I had some doubts about this since surely both the premise of having the seat allocation fee waived due to the presence of a GCH, plus the availability of front rows only to GCHs until T-72 are both things that are BA specific and wouldn't necessarily be changeable in amadeus?

Anyway, the response from the travel agent is: "Unfortunately we can't allocate seats for these bookings I'm afraid. They have to be requested at check in. "

Any ideas what I can do and if I can make this work? Admittedly it's only a 1.25 hour flight so it's not the end of the world, but would be nice to sit together.

Thanks in advance.

A seating dilemma
 

Call again, get a different agent. It is a published benefit for Gold card holders to select seats for travel companions who are on the same flight, even if on another booking.

There's tonnes of room in all seats on the E90; I probably wouldn't stress too much over this and just choose seats together at D-3/OLCI.

Whenever I have done this, they have always wanted to speak to the person you are trying to get seating for. This was because of as you say ' data protection'.

Either that or you are added to their booking as an authorised person.

I have done these in the past and data protection was not an issue. However, I did one a few months ago and the agent told me it was so I wonder whether BA call centres have been told that they can no longer just take requests after speaking to the GCH.

In terms of the process itslef, "linking bookings" (called TCP - To/Total Complete Party) is available to any status, it is not a gold specific benefit. All TCP'ing two bookings does though is add a note on one referencing the other. It is not any kind of merging of the bookings, and nor does it provide any protection for connections when linking two separate sequential bookings. The linking can be done by the BA agent on the phone.

However, what is a BA gold benefit and not available for OWEs or other BA tiers is free seat selection for the non-gold/silver booking passenger. If you are a GCH and there is someone travelling on the same flight and in the same cabin on a separate booking, you can request free seat selection for the other person so that you can sit together. This second step, after doing the TCP, is usually sent off to the infamous back office to process and takes a few days to do.

The benefit is mentioned on BA.com:

http://www.britishairways.com/en-us/.../gold-benefits

Finally it appears a TA can action a TCP & seat request as set out on Speedbirdclub.com:

http://www.speedbirdclub.com/nl/rese.../baseatreqinf/

Thankfully I have my TA's IATA# noted down and can get to this, looks promising!

I've PDF'd it and forwarded it onto the TA, will see what they say. If no luck there I'll try BA again.

Thanks v much for this KARFA.

No problem. You don't need an IATA number, on the front page there is a tick box below the country and number input fields. The tick box is for where you don't have an IATA number, and you can therefore get in to the site without one.

Good news.. so I sent KARFA's SBC link to the TA and they have successfully TCP linked the three bookings!
However, they did explain that all they can do in Amadeus is put a note on to seat the others 'near' me, not allocate any seats.
I then gave BA gold line another shot and got through to Manchester again, but a much more helpful gentleman this time. He could see that the bookings have been linked and says that's all ok, he could also see that the seats next to me are free and has sent a request to back office to get the others moved into those seats, which they should get done in the next few hours providing those seats don't get taken in the meantime.
Nearly there by the looks of things, fingers crossed! Thanks again for help all.

I'm a little suspicious.
The call handler on Friday told me that back office should allocate my seats 'within the next few hours'.
Nothing yet and I just phoned to ask when it might be done as I was concerned about losing the seats.
The agent today told me that it would likely be done closer to the date of travel and 'try checking on the 24th'. Now with me travelling on the 27th, I suddenly realised - does he mean midday T-72; the time of destiny for all non-GCHs to select their seats at the front?
Would this mean that they're giving the GCHs the full run of their seat selection exclusivity before they do any of this?
I guess what I'm saying is:
a) do they wait for GCHs to have their full shot at the seats before they'll do any companion allocations?
b) more importantly, would my companions' seats be allocated automatically just before T-72, or would I be waiting on an agent to do it after that time? If the latter, I reckon I'll lose them.. When I was a silver I used to snap them up at T-72 every time.

Also, I'm in Heathrow tomorrow morning. Worth a shot asking at a desk?

Thanks

They get allocated about 1-3 days after you submit your request usually. The request doesn't get held until t-72 hrs before actioning.

Now up to a week since I requested, and nothing has happened. Will try giving them another call later as T-72 is tomorrow.

Is it true that all seats on the E190 have 34" legroom? I had a bad experience on the E170 (definitely NOT 34" legroom) and wondered if anyone could confirm?

As far as inches are concerned I'm not sure, but I do LCY-GLA weekly and I can't say I notice much difference between the 190 and the 170. The main advantage of the 190 is you get 2C and 2D which have loads of leg room as there is no row 1 on the right hand side. You do not get this on a 170.

I find both the 170s and 190s considerably more spacious than A320 family from LHR. Seats considerably wider and legroom slightly better - and the 2x2 seat layout means no middle seats.

The BA website doesn't enlighten as too legroom, seat guru reckons 30", seat plans.com 33", basource reckons 34". I agree that the seats are wider, and found the exit seat on my flight back from MAD in Dec very comfortable. I've never sat in any other than 2F or row 12.

Being tall-ish and having travelled on both there is definitely a very noticeable difference in seat pitch. Every row in the E190 has comparatively excellent legroom (comparable to "old" Club Europe), whereas every row in the E170 is quite tight. 30" on the E170 and 34" on the E190 sounds about right.

The reason for this is that the E190 has space for 46 (give or take) more seats than the E170, but BA only put an extra 22 seats in to keep the total pax count under 100 (Cityflyer couldn't operate it otherwise).