BA set me up to be frustrated - a rant
Sep 5, 2017, 4:42 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: NV
Programs: Marriott LT Gold; AAdvantage Gold; HH Gold
Posts: 141
BA set me up to be frustrated - a rant
I have to say I'm already so thoroughly soured on the BA experience, even though my trip is still almost 2 months away.
Background - I'd been AA EXP/OW Emerald for a number of years before eventually souring on AA and the value (or lack thereof) of flying and trying to maintain status with them. I ditched AA to become a free agent, but still had a pile of miles to use up. Several months ago, I figured I'd use the last of these miles for 2 roundtrip tix to Europe in Oct for a river cruise. I expected I'd be unlikely to find any AA options when booking with miles (one of the reasons I left AA is because of how scarce award inventory to Europe can be with them now), so forked over the miles and BA's surcharges to fly LAS-SEA-LHR-BUD in Club World (a far from ideal itinerary but, again, the perils of award travel - out of the way connections, super long layovers). No longer having any OneWorld status, I also went ahead and paid an additional $300+ to be able to select somewhat desirable seats on the 747's upper deck from SEA-LHR.
Lo and behold, when randomly checking my reservation one day (I'm the type to just open up the mobile app and give it a quick look for no reason in particular) I see we no longer had our seats. BA dropped the 747 for the flight, replacing it with a 773. Unable to look forward to checking the upper deck of a 747 off my bucket list, I now had to see what appealing options existed in the 773. Oddly enough, I actually thought when re-selecting "Row 16 is a risk, because so much of their longhaul fleet doesn't even have a row 15 in CW and if they change the plane again...". Nonetheless, I put us in 16A/B because it offered most of what we wanted (one window seat that also had aisle access, another seat with easy aisle access).
Sure enough - you see where this is going - only a week after choosing new seats on the 773, BA again changed the plane. 772 now, with no Row 16. Once again, our [paid-for] seat selection was rendered obsolete. By this point, no more window seats were available; no more outside window/aisle pairs were available. I was now left only able to choose from seats I'd expressly paid to avoid having to choose from out the outset of this entire process months ago.
Now, I'm a fairly mellow person and accept reality for what it is. I understand why an airline would change aircraft type, and I've flown enough to know you can't be entirely sure what you'll be flying until you're on the plane (and, even then, it's not quite 100% guaranteed). I also get that I have no status so when I'm left looking at all these unappealing (to me) seat options, something might come up at the 24hr-to-checkin mark and also that it makes sense for a top-tier BA Executive Club passenger to have access to something I don't.
Ultimately, though, I can't help but find myself kinda giggling and shaking my head at just how far it can feel like BA goes out of its way to make changes or inconveniences all the more frustrating. For instance...
- They charge for seat selection, even in business class. This is far from standard practice, and even as a lowly, non-status passenger on AA metal for my return leg of this trip, I didn't have to pay to select seats (and never do in J). Heck, BA is the only airline I've ever had to pay for seat selection when flying in anything above economy.
- With respect to award travel in particular, BA's surcharges are far from appealing. They also make it even harder to swallow changes and inconveniences easily. Without them, one might be able to just shrug their shoulders, shake things off, and say "Well, it's just miles!". In this case, though, it's quite a lot of miles... and then $1000 in surcharges (part of which can be attributed to the Club Europe portion of the journey from LHR-BUD, admittedly). AA shares blame on this for often giving you only surcharge-leveling partner options on award travel.
- Their hard product in J makes you feel like the stakes are that much higher. Not all seats have aisle access. Not everyone wants to have to climb over others, or be climbed over. Some seats offer hardly any privacy or might make for sharing what's almost a loveseat with a total stranger. Even BA kinda acknowledges this in Manage My Booking, when suggesting you go ahead and pay to select seats if you're particular about where you want to sit. On other airlines with better J setups, not getting your preferred seat might not make that much of a difference but with BA it can really turn day in to night.
- No notifications get sent out when your seat selection is taken from you, or the aircraft type changes. While I'm the type to keep checking on my reservation ahead of time just in case, I wonder how many passengers have shown up to the airport on the day of travel only to find a seat that at one point had been "Confirmed" no longer exists, and they're stuck with something else entirely. Can the mobile app not give a push notification? No SMS? No e-mail?
For BA's own sake, and that of its employees, I'd have to imagine some of the above can make for some unnecessary misery. While I'm fairly good at taking things in stride (I'll just post excessively long rants online), how many passengers - feeling angry and slighted - end up being rude to cabin staff, ground crew, or customer service reps? How much effort and energy do these folk have to expend hearing out people who were gradually set up to be more frustrated than they needed to be?
All this has really reaffirmed my decision to ditch AA (and OneWorld and BA), but even as a "free agent" I just can't see myself ever deciding to fly BA again until they've totally upgraded their business class hard product to the point where so many of the seats in it aren't so unappealing, and thus the stakes not so high. We'll see if I can get any refund on the seat selection fees, but I'm not holding my breath.
Background - I'd been AA EXP/OW Emerald for a number of years before eventually souring on AA and the value (or lack thereof) of flying and trying to maintain status with them. I ditched AA to become a free agent, but still had a pile of miles to use up. Several months ago, I figured I'd use the last of these miles for 2 roundtrip tix to Europe in Oct for a river cruise. I expected I'd be unlikely to find any AA options when booking with miles (one of the reasons I left AA is because of how scarce award inventory to Europe can be with them now), so forked over the miles and BA's surcharges to fly LAS-SEA-LHR-BUD in Club World (a far from ideal itinerary but, again, the perils of award travel - out of the way connections, super long layovers). No longer having any OneWorld status, I also went ahead and paid an additional $300+ to be able to select somewhat desirable seats on the 747's upper deck from SEA-LHR.
Lo and behold, when randomly checking my reservation one day (I'm the type to just open up the mobile app and give it a quick look for no reason in particular) I see we no longer had our seats. BA dropped the 747 for the flight, replacing it with a 773. Unable to look forward to checking the upper deck of a 747 off my bucket list, I now had to see what appealing options existed in the 773. Oddly enough, I actually thought when re-selecting "Row 16 is a risk, because so much of their longhaul fleet doesn't even have a row 15 in CW and if they change the plane again...". Nonetheless, I put us in 16A/B because it offered most of what we wanted (one window seat that also had aisle access, another seat with easy aisle access).
Sure enough - you see where this is going - only a week after choosing new seats on the 773, BA again changed the plane. 772 now, with no Row 16. Once again, our [paid-for] seat selection was rendered obsolete. By this point, no more window seats were available; no more outside window/aisle pairs were available. I was now left only able to choose from seats I'd expressly paid to avoid having to choose from out the outset of this entire process months ago.
Now, I'm a fairly mellow person and accept reality for what it is. I understand why an airline would change aircraft type, and I've flown enough to know you can't be entirely sure what you'll be flying until you're on the plane (and, even then, it's not quite 100% guaranteed). I also get that I have no status so when I'm left looking at all these unappealing (to me) seat options, something might come up at the 24hr-to-checkin mark and also that it makes sense for a top-tier BA Executive Club passenger to have access to something I don't.
Ultimately, though, I can't help but find myself kinda giggling and shaking my head at just how far it can feel like BA goes out of its way to make changes or inconveniences all the more frustrating. For instance...
- They charge for seat selection, even in business class. This is far from standard practice, and even as a lowly, non-status passenger on AA metal for my return leg of this trip, I didn't have to pay to select seats (and never do in J). Heck, BA is the only airline I've ever had to pay for seat selection when flying in anything above economy.
- With respect to award travel in particular, BA's surcharges are far from appealing. They also make it even harder to swallow changes and inconveniences easily. Without them, one might be able to just shrug their shoulders, shake things off, and say "Well, it's just miles!". In this case, though, it's quite a lot of miles... and then $1000 in surcharges (part of which can be attributed to the Club Europe portion of the journey from LHR-BUD, admittedly). AA shares blame on this for often giving you only surcharge-leveling partner options on award travel.
- Their hard product in J makes you feel like the stakes are that much higher. Not all seats have aisle access. Not everyone wants to have to climb over others, or be climbed over. Some seats offer hardly any privacy or might make for sharing what's almost a loveseat with a total stranger. Even BA kinda acknowledges this in Manage My Booking, when suggesting you go ahead and pay to select seats if you're particular about where you want to sit. On other airlines with better J setups, not getting your preferred seat might not make that much of a difference but with BA it can really turn day in to night.
- No notifications get sent out when your seat selection is taken from you, or the aircraft type changes. While I'm the type to keep checking on my reservation ahead of time just in case, I wonder how many passengers have shown up to the airport on the day of travel only to find a seat that at one point had been "Confirmed" no longer exists, and they're stuck with something else entirely. Can the mobile app not give a push notification? No SMS? No e-mail?
For BA's own sake, and that of its employees, I'd have to imagine some of the above can make for some unnecessary misery. While I'm fairly good at taking things in stride (I'll just post excessively long rants online), how many passengers - feeling angry and slighted - end up being rude to cabin staff, ground crew, or customer service reps? How much effort and energy do these folk have to expend hearing out people who were gradually set up to be more frustrated than they needed to be?
All this has really reaffirmed my decision to ditch AA (and OneWorld and BA), but even as a "free agent" I just can't see myself ever deciding to fly BA again until they've totally upgraded their business class hard product to the point where so many of the seats in it aren't so unappealing, and thus the stakes not so high. We'll see if I can get any refund on the seat selection fees, but I'm not holding my breath.
Last edited by brytpa; Sep 5, 2017 at 4:47 am
Sep 5, 2017, 4:49 am
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: NV
Programs: Marriott LT Gold; AAdvantage Gold; HH Gold
Posts: 141
Sep 5, 2017, 4:54 am
#5
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 5,596
I have to say I'm already so thoroughly soured on the BA experience, even though my trip is still almost 2 months away.
Background - I'd been AA EXP/OW Emerald for a number of years before eventually souring on AA and the value (or lack thereof) of flying and trying to maintain status with them. I ditched AA to become a free agent, but still had a pile of miles to use up. Several months ago, I figured I'd use the last of these miles for 2 roundtrip tix to Europe in Oct for a river cruise. I expected I'd be unlikely to find any AA options when booking with miles (one of the reasons I left AA is because of how scarce award inventory to Europe can be with them now), so forked over the miles and BA's surcharges to fly LAS-SEA-LHR-BUD in Club World (a far from ideal itinerary but, again, the perils of award travel - out of the way connections, super long layovers). No longer having any OneWorld status, I also went ahead and paid an additional $300+ to be able to select somewhat desirable seats on the 747's upper deck from SEA-LHR.
Lo and behold, when randomly checking my reservation one day (I'm the type to just open up the mobile app and give it a quick look for no reason in particular) I see we no longer had our seats. BA dropped the 747 for the flight, replacing it with a 773. Unable to look forward to checking the upper deck of a 747 off my bucket list, I now had to see what appealing options existed in the 773. Oddly enough, I actually thought when re-selecting "Row 16 is a risk, because so much of their longhaul fleet doesn't even have a row 15 in CW and if they change the plane again...". Nonetheless, I put us in 16A/B because it offered most of what we wanted (one window seat that also had aisle access, another seat with easy aisle access).
Sure enough - you see where this is going - only a week after choosing new seats on the 773, BA again changed the plane. 772 now, with no Row 16. Once again, our [paid-for] seat selection was rendered obsolete. By this point, no more window seats were available; no more outside window/aisle pairs were available. I was now left only able to choose from seats I'd expressly paid to avoid having to choose from out the outset of this entire process months ago.
Now, I'm a fairly mellow person and accept reality for what it is. I understand why an airline would change aircraft type, and I've flown enough to know you can't be entirely sure what you'll be flying until you're on the plane (and, even then, it's not quite 100% guaranteed). I also get that I have no status so when I'm left looking at all these unappealing (to me) seat options, something might come up at the 24hr-to-checkin mark and also that it makes sense for a top-tier BA Executive Club passenger to have access to something I don't.
Ultimately, though, I can't help but find myself kinda giggling and shaking my head at just how far it can feel like BA goes out of its way to make changes or inconveniences all the more frustrating. For instance...
- They charge for seat selection, even in business class. This is far from standard practice, and even as a lowly, non-status passenger on AA metal for my return leg of this trip, I didn't have to pay to select seats (and never do in J). Heck, BA is the only airline I've ever had to pay for seat selection when flying in anything above economy.
- With respect to award travel in particular, BA's surcharges are far from appealing. They also make it even harder to swallow changes and inconveniences easily. Without them, one might be able to just shrug their shoulders, shake things off, and say "Well, it's just miles!". In this case, though, it's quite a lot of miles... and then $1000 in surcharges (part of which can be attributed to the Club Europe portion of the journey from LHR-BUD, admittedly). AA shares blame on this for often giving you only surcharge-leveling partner options on award travel.
- Their hard product in J makes you feel like the stakes are that much higher. Not all seats have aisle access. Not everyone wants to have to climb over others, or be climbed over. Some seats offer hardly any privacy or might make for sharing what's almost a loveseat with a total stranger. Even BA kinda acknowledges this in Manage My Booking, when suggesting you go ahead and pay to select seats if you're particular about where you want to sit. On other airlines with better J setups, not getting your preferred seat might not make that much of a difference but with BA it can really turn day in to night.
- No notifications get sent out when your seat selection is taken from you, or the aircraft type changes. While I'm the type to keep checking on my reservation ahead of time just in case, I wonder how many passengers have shown up to the airport on the day of travel only to find a seat that at one point had been "Confirmed" no longer exists, and they're stuck with something else entirely. Can the mobile app not give a push notification? No SMS? No e-mail?
For BA's own sake, and that of its employees, I'd have to imagine some of the above can make for some unnecessary misery. While I'm fairly good at taking things in stride (I'll just post excessively long rants online), how many passengers - feeling angry and slighted - end up being rude to cabin staff, ground crew, or customer service reps? How much effort and energy do these folk have to expend hearing out people who were gradually set up to be more frustrated than they needed to be?
All this has really reaffirmed my decision to ditch AA (and OneWorld and BA), but even as a "free agent" I just can't see myself ever deciding to fly BA again until they've totally upgraded their business class hard product to the point where so many of the seats in it aren't so unappealing, and thus the stakes not so high. We'll see if I can get any refund on the seat selection fees, but I'm not holding my breath.
Background - I'd been AA EXP/OW Emerald for a number of years before eventually souring on AA and the value (or lack thereof) of flying and trying to maintain status with them. I ditched AA to become a free agent, but still had a pile of miles to use up. Several months ago, I figured I'd use the last of these miles for 2 roundtrip tix to Europe in Oct for a river cruise. I expected I'd be unlikely to find any AA options when booking with miles (one of the reasons I left AA is because of how scarce award inventory to Europe can be with them now), so forked over the miles and BA's surcharges to fly LAS-SEA-LHR-BUD in Club World (a far from ideal itinerary but, again, the perils of award travel - out of the way connections, super long layovers). No longer having any OneWorld status, I also went ahead and paid an additional $300+ to be able to select somewhat desirable seats on the 747's upper deck from SEA-LHR.
Lo and behold, when randomly checking my reservation one day (I'm the type to just open up the mobile app and give it a quick look for no reason in particular) I see we no longer had our seats. BA dropped the 747 for the flight, replacing it with a 773. Unable to look forward to checking the upper deck of a 747 off my bucket list, I now had to see what appealing options existed in the 773. Oddly enough, I actually thought when re-selecting "Row 16 is a risk, because so much of their longhaul fleet doesn't even have a row 15 in CW and if they change the plane again...". Nonetheless, I put us in 16A/B because it offered most of what we wanted (one window seat that also had aisle access, another seat with easy aisle access).
Sure enough - you see where this is going - only a week after choosing new seats on the 773, BA again changed the plane. 772 now, with no Row 16. Once again, our [paid-for] seat selection was rendered obsolete. By this point, no more window seats were available; no more outside window/aisle pairs were available. I was now left only able to choose from seats I'd expressly paid to avoid having to choose from out the outset of this entire process months ago.
Now, I'm a fairly mellow person and accept reality for what it is. I understand why an airline would change aircraft type, and I've flown enough to know you can't be entirely sure what you'll be flying until you're on the plane (and, even then, it's not quite 100% guaranteed). I also get that I have no status so when I'm left looking at all these unappealing (to me) seat options, something might come up at the 24hr-to-checkin mark and also that it makes sense for a top-tier BA Executive Club passenger to have access to something I don't.
Ultimately, though, I can't help but find myself kinda giggling and shaking my head at just how far it can feel like BA goes out of its way to make changes or inconveniences all the more frustrating. For instance...
- They charge for seat selection, even in business class. This is far from standard practice, and even as a lowly, non-status passenger on AA metal for my return leg of this trip, I didn't have to pay to select seats (and never do in J). Heck, BA is the only airline I've ever had to pay for seat selection when flying in anything above economy.
- With respect to award travel in particular, BA's surcharges are far from appealing. They also make it even harder to swallow changes and inconveniences easily. Without them, one might be able to just shrug their shoulders, shake things off, and say "Well, it's just miles!". In this case, though, it's quite a lot of miles... and then $1000 in surcharges (part of which can be attributed to the Club Europe portion of the journey from LHR-BUD, admittedly). AA shares blame on this for often giving you only surcharge-leveling partner options on award travel.
- Their hard product in J makes you feel like the stakes are that much higher. Not all seats have aisle access. Not everyone wants to have to climb over others, or be climbed over. Some seats offer hardly any privacy or might make for sharing what's almost a loveseat with a total stranger. Even BA kinda acknowledges this in Manage My Booking, when suggesting you go ahead and pay to select seats if you're particular about where you want to sit. On other airlines with better J setups, not getting your preferred seat might not make that much of a difference but with BA it can really turn day in to night.
- No notifications get sent out when your seat selection is taken from you, or the aircraft type changes. While I'm the type to keep checking on my reservation ahead of time just in case, I wonder how many passengers have shown up to the airport on the day of travel only to find a seat that at one point had been "Confirmed" no longer exists, and they're stuck with something else entirely. Can the mobile app not give a push notification? No SMS? No e-mail?
For BA's own sake, and that of its employees, I'd have to imagine some of the above can make for some unnecessary misery. While I'm fairly good at taking things in stride (I'll just post excessively long rants online), how many passengers - feeling angry and slighted - end up being rude to cabin staff, ground crew, or customer service reps? How much effort and energy do these folk have to expend hearing out people who were gradually set up to be more frustrated than they needed to be?
All this has really reaffirmed my decision to ditch AA (and OneWorld and BA), but even as a "free agent" I just can't see myself ever deciding to fly BA again until they've totally upgraded their business class hard product to the point where so many of the seats in it aren't so unappealing, and thus the stakes not so high. We'll see if I can get any refund on the seat selection fees, but I'm not holding my breath.
Sep 5, 2017, 4:56 am
#6
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: UK
Posts: 221
BA are not good at telling you about changes they make, but the MyFlights app is. It's free and I wholeheartedly recommend it to monitor your bookings for you.
The aircraft my change again so you might get lucky. Also, it's likely some of the window and aisle seats you would prefer are blocked by theoretical seating and may open up closer to the departure date. You can check this in ExpertFlyer or if you post the date and fight number someone will look it up for you.
The aircraft my change again so you might get lucky. Also, it's likely some of the window and aisle seats you would prefer are blocked by theoretical seating and may open up closer to the departure date. You can check this in ExpertFlyer or if you post the date and fight number someone will look it up for you.
Last edited by gingeola; Sep 5, 2017 at 5:38 am
Sep 5, 2017, 5:10 am
#7
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: NV
Programs: Marriott LT Gold; AAdvantage Gold; HH Gold
Posts: 141
This is where AA comes in as a guilty party. It's the only option they give ya! AA's own award inventory has been cut down severely, so it can be extremely difficult finding any options on their own metal. This is a big reason why I ditched AA in the first place - I found they made it too difficult to enjoy the fruits of one's own labor, so to speak (even as an EXP, I had repeated experiences finding it difficult, if not impossible, to use their systemwide upgrades for any flights to Europe [the only longhaul flying I ever really do]). When using AA miles for award travel to Europe, BA is more often than not the only option given - so you use up your miles, and shell out surcharge money. This was the case not only on my preferred dates of travel, but even for weeks ahead of and following the dates I wanted. No other options given in this case, either (Iberia, Finnair, etc). So in my case, my frustrations are tempered a bit by my knowing I'm just using up my last AA miles to be done with em. If I was someone who'd busted their bum to score themselves a hard-earned, long sought after trip to Europe, though, I'd be even more the unhappy camper.
Sep 5, 2017, 5:13 am
#8
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 5,596
This is where AA comes in as a guilty party. It's the only option they give ya! AA's own award inventory has been cut down severely, so it can be extremely difficult finding any options on their own metal. This is a big reason why I ditched AA in the first place - I found they made it too difficult to enjoy the fruits of one's own labor, so to speak (even as an EXP, I had repeated experiences finding it difficult, if not impossible, to use their systemwide upgrades for any flights to Europe [the only longhaul flying I ever really do]). When using AA miles for award travel to Europe, BA is more often than not the only option given - so you use up your miles, and shell out surcharge money. This was the case not only on my preferred dates of travel, but even for weeks ahead of and following the dates I wanted. No other options given in this case, either (Iberia, Finnair, etc). So in my case, my frustrations are tempered a bit by my knowing I'm just using up my last AA miles to be done with em. If I was someone who'd busted their bum to score themselves a hard-earned, long sought after trip to Europe, though, I'd be even more the unhappy camper.
Sep 5, 2017, 5:14 am
#9
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: NV
Programs: Marriott LT Gold; AAdvantage Gold; HH Gold
Posts: 141
BA are not good at telling you about changes they make, but the MyFlights app is. It's free and I wholeheartedly recommend it to monitor your bookings for you.
The aircraft my change again so you might get lucky. Also, it's likely some of the window and aisle seats you would prefer are blocked by theoretical seating and may open up closer to the departure date. You can check this in expert flyer or if you post the date and fight number someone will look it up for you.
The aircraft my change again so you might get lucky. Also, it's likely some of the window and aisle seats you would prefer are blocked by theoretical seating and may open up closer to the departure date. You can check this in expert flyer or if you post the date and fight number someone will look it up for you.
I'll definitely check out ExpertFlyer, tho. Thanks for the tip on that!
Last edited by brytpa; Sep 5, 2017 at 5:30 am
Sep 5, 2017, 5:21 am
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: NV
Programs: Marriott LT Gold; AAdvantage Gold; HH Gold
Posts: 141
I'm a "free agent" now, booking with whoever offers the best deal and option for when and where I want to travel. I mostly fly domestic US, and live in Vegas. So 9/10 times I'll fly Southwest (and they have no partners, no flights to Europe). When I do take a big trip overseas, I just pay for whatever flight/airline works for it. This particular trip was an exception, though, as I had a bunch of AA miles that'd been sitting in my account for a few years (not expired cuz I'd occasionally earn a handful here and there from non-flight activity like dining and such) and I figured I'd finally use em and cut that last AA chord, so to speak.
Sep 5, 2017, 5:27 am
#11
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 5,596
I'm a "free agent" now, booking with whoever offers the best deal and option for when and where I want to travel. I mostly fly domestic US, and live in Vegas. So 9/10 times I'll fly Southwest (and they have no partners, no flights to Europe). When I do take a big trip overseas, I just pay for whatever flight/airline works for it. This particular trip was an exception, though, as I had a bunch of AA miles that'd been sitting in my account for a few years (not expired cuz I'd occasionally earn a handful here and there from non-flight activity like dining and such) and I figured I'd finally use em and cut that last AA chord, so to speak.
Sep 5, 2017, 5:47 am
#12
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: NV
Programs: Marriott LT Gold; AAdvantage Gold; HH Gold
Posts: 141
Also, status or none, there's something to be said on delivering what's been paid for. In other words, while I don't have status I did pay for seat selection - and then had what was paid for taken away.
Again, I accept aircraft changes happen. But my point is potential frustration over aircraft changes could be tempered by a) not charging for seats b) having a better J hard product c) communicating changes to customers. In other words, I didn't find any individual inconvenience or policy to be all that frustrating or unacceptable or even unexpected - but BA just happens to operate in a manner that allows for their policies to combine to make changes and inconveniences more frustrating than they need to be.
Case in point would be my return, where I'm on AA metal LHR-MIA. My seats changed when the plane was changed from a 773 to 772. However, there was no charge for seat selection (even sans status); still a similar enough hard product even (all aisle-access, all reverse-herringbone, no surcharges for the award redemption) so ultimately no big deal.
Sep 5, 2017, 5:49 am
#13
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Flatland
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold 1MM, BA Gold, UA Peon
Posts: 6,110
BA choose to let those with elite frequent flyer status have a wide choice of seats, even those who book close in (and pay higher fares), by making the non-elites pay.
Many other infrequent travellers (especially those on award tickets) may not like that and complain about it ad infinitum (often, ad nauseam), but I can entirely understand BA's priorities.
AA 77W business: nice cabin, but booking within a couple of weeks of travel, you will never get a window seat. That doesn't much happen on BA.
Many other infrequent travellers (especially those on award tickets) may not like that and complain about it ad infinitum (often, ad nauseam), but I can entirely understand BA's priorities.
AA 77W business: nice cabin, but booking within a couple of weeks of travel, you will never get a window seat. That doesn't much happen on BA.
Sep 5, 2017, 5:49 am
#14
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: JER
Programs: BA Gold/OWE, several MUCCI, and assorted Pensions!
Posts: 32,145
MyFlights, and neurotic re-checking on the carrier's website, remains the essential solution.
Sep 5, 2017, 6:10 am
#15
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: NV
Programs: Marriott LT Gold; AAdvantage Gold; HH Gold
Posts: 141
In other words, by having a hard product packed full of seats that are so undesirable, offering such disparate experiences, this practice of charging for them was made necessary. If they had a better hard product that could offer up a higher quality experience throughout the business class cabin - or at least a more consistent one - regardless of seat, they wouldn't need to try and compensate for that by introducing this pay-for-assignment system.