scottishpoet

Does it take airport which normally has rear door stairs into consideration when deciding the "good" seats?

r00ty

I hope not. I speak as a regular (well when I lived at that end of town) occupant of seat 18D on the E170's from LCY. Wait, I'm gold now... Errr. I hope so!

corporate-wage-slave

Nope, in fact you won't be allowed to disturb the serenity of many Silvers either. So if you don't pay in advance, you're heading to the row 25 "rendition" seating.

Mind you, here's your excuse for a splendid trip to Hawai'i. I will start a thread in your honour when you do.

V10

Same flight, BA1321 on 1st September, so inside 72 hours.

Interestingly it's now only offering 17E.

I've actually found this a very useful exercise, as it's more or less now confirmed my suspicions that the new seating algorithm would give a significant risk of ending up in a crap seat unless booking a long way out and paying the extra to reserve at the time of booking.

Flip42

But other Golds can place themselves on, say, 1B?

Any idea what happens if the plane is completely full? Filling the front with Golds and the back with Blues with Bronze and Silver in between?

r00ty

This is what I was leaning toward in my previous post.

It's likely that when there's no more seats available in a tier block you're entitled to, it will open up the next available block in some order of preference.

My thinking is that "at the moment" the exit seats are opened before the OWS/Silver block are. Hence the weird situation where Bronze can select an exit row, when a Silver cannot.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, 1B is an option. It was always the risk that front row middle seats were taken, you can see the dialogue: "Sorry, there's no window or aisle seats left, but we can get you row 1 for the legroom and you'll be off quick". But subjectively it's now much less common for 1B/1E to be used in Domestics and the front of ET, since only Golds now get that conversation, whereas before anyone with a tight connection would be angling for it. Before Theoretical Seating it was sometimes the case that the ONLY middle seats taken, apart from couples travelling, would be 1B and 1E, to the annoyance of their gilt-ridden neighbours.

From what I can make out, this BA1321 will go out fairly full, there won't be many empty seats, and they will be in the front by the looks of it. But in broad terms your filling logic seems about right.

HIDDY

'I know my place'.....and I'd rather go to the Hebrides than Hawaii thanks.

Must admit the whole thing leaves me befuddled. However as I don't care where I sit on a short flight it doesn't concern me.

ShuttleRunner

I've recently been looking at Expertflyer for my twice weekly LHR-GLA-LHR slogs just out of curiosity. About 80% of the time I have a free seat next to me in Row 1 (middle shown blocked), and a lot of the time if I'm in 1D, for example, then 1E and 1F will be blocked and empty once boarding is complete - then a couple will always make an excuse to move into them, and the CC duly oblige!

I do, however, have a query regarding a HAM return I have in ET in a fortnight. The whole cabin is completely open on MMB and on EF (except from the front 2 rows of ET, understandably). I have exit seats on both legs and there are very few seats assigned, but there are no blocked seats next to anybody. Do you think they can essentially switch off theoretical seating for particular flights?

antichef

ABZ and BHD ... my two starting points!

Ziz

Do we know if seats will be blocked next to Golds/Silvers on HBO fares? Or if golds/silvers will be auto-assigned to seats in areas that had previously been blocked for their status?

corporate-wage-slave

Theoretical seating applies in the final 72 hours, see post 1, so you're jumping the gun there! But though there is no blocked seating, effectively only Silver and Golds can go to the front of ET at this stage. Later on you may be able to move to a better seat, but frankly you are best staying in the final exit row.

What seems to be happening there is that Golds in HBO are being allocated into the front sections, but it is only visible at T-24 (sometimes the App gives an advanced hint). So Gold passengers with HBO are now more likely to be (a) near the front and (b) have an empty seat next to them. Silver seems not to have this benefit.

ShuttleRunner

Ah, I see! I'm too used to booking within T-72 so I always see blocking! No intention of moving from the exit row, pure curiosity

Flip42

Could this mean, that in row 2 there is a bigger chance of a free seat next to you than in row 1? At least on a busy service? (On short flights I would prefer a vacant seat next to me over a little more legroom.)

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, and that's always been the case, particularly when it became the best for kneeroom (but not necessarily legroom). On this particular flight I would suspect row 5 will be the last to lose the middle seats, but it would be very unusual to have more than 3 or 4 new Gold bookings, probably less, so my guess is that only 3A won't get an empty seat, and that's due to presumably a couple in 3B and C.