SussexFly

Just spoken to BA contact centre regarding my seat selection and that on the app and browser my outbound sector states “seat choices only available at check in”, yet the return is fine.

They have now resolved the issue and I have chosen my seats (thanks to EF!).

The guy I spoke to said that the reason I could choose my seats is because my ticket hadn’t been validated (or words to that affect).
What does this mean?

Andriyko

Revalidation is usually required when you make a change and that change does not require a different booking class (which would require a reissue). Sometime tickets are revalidated when there are schedule changes.

Globaliser

I think it's the modern equivalent of the old yellow sticker which would be affixed to the affected coupon of the red carbon ticket booklet, for those of us who can remember those.

It meant that all the work of reissuing the ticket didn't have to be done. Otherwise, someone would have had to sit down and write a brand new ticket in exchange for the old ticket; you'd hand back the old booklet in return for the new one.

SussexFly

Ah ok, I think I understand.

i upgraded from WTP to CW and the agent said it’ll be that that needs validating.
however when I upgraded the return - which was done a few months before I upgraded the outbound - it didn’t need validating? I’ve always been able to see the return seat map, just not the outbound.

as long as I can travel that’s all that matters!

Globaliser

AIUI, if you do an upgrade like that, the ticket gets reissued. And we all know there are delays in BA's processes for doing that. So maybe the agent was just using inaccurate terminology in your case when he actually meant that the ticket needed to be reissued.

But do you have FF status that allows you to pre-allocate seats for free? Normally, if you do and the status is accurately showing in the booking, you can get at the seat map even without a ticket.

SussexFly

ah ok then - so the ticket wasn’t re-issued from when I upgraded a number of months ago?

what would have happened if I hadn’t called up?!?

My FF status is still Blue, so no perks for allocating seats just yet.

Globaliser

To take the second question first, the ticket would probably have been properly reissued at some stage before your travel date - it seems that the queue is prioritised by travel date. So normally it sorts itself out at some stage.

If you buy the underlying ticket and then upgrade sector by sector, IME what tends to happen is this.

You start with a valid ticket with two coupons, one for each sector of the journey (assuming a simple two-sector round-trip).

When you do the first upgrade, the agent "pulls" the coupon for the sector you're upgrading. You cease to have a valid ticket for that sector, so (if you need to pay) you can no longer see the seat map for the sector you've just upgraded. But the other coupon remains, so you can still see the seat map for the other sector.

When the ticket is reissued, usually the other coupon is also invalidated and the whole journey is reissued on a new ticket. That restores your ability to see the seat map for both sectors.

That may explain why for a period you could see the seat map for one sector but not the other, although it doesn't fit your description of what happened.

corporate-wage-slave

By the sounds of it you may have missed some of the other threads on this matter in recent days. If there is one single piece of advice I would give to someone perhaps unfamiliar with the intricacies of flying, it is definitely "check that you have been properly ticketed". This applies to any flight, any airline really, but really is utterly essential if you alter a booking. Ticketing is done in priority order and in BA's case occasionally it gets overlooked or left too late. I know it's not intuitive, heading off the argument that often comes back here that passengers shouldn't need to do it, but still important to do it.

You can check if you have been ticketed via the App, under View & manage more flight details; alternatively use this link:
https://classic.checkmytrip.com/plne...&SITE=XCMTXXNS
In the case of the URL above, you looking for something beginning 125 in the e-ticket section.

SussexFly

ah ok, the 125 thing makes sense now - so if it begins with 125 then it means I’ve been ticketed correctly?

SussexFly

i cant remember the exact details myself now. I’m not entirely sure if I could see the outbound seat map once I had upgraded the return sector.

either way, what you’ve said sounds like what could have happened to me.

Thank you for answering my enquiry!

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, it should do. On the App the ticket number will be absent if action is pending on it - so you typically have a number from the BA.com booking then it goes after the change and then hopefully comes back again after ticketing is complete.

Globaliser

If you look on the checkmytrip site, if the old ticket has one coupon "pulled" and the booking is in the queue to be re-ticketed, IME a 125- number still shows up. But the sectors covered by the ticket will be wrong (ie incomplete). So I think that a 125- number is not enough in itself on that site. But if there is a 125- ticket number and the ticket (not just the reservation) covers all the sectors of the trip, then all should be well.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, good points, and there is also a date in checkmytrip of the ticketing, which in that scenario would be either missing or the old date.

SussexFly

i’ve learnt a valuable lesson today, so thank you both!
i now know for future reference what to check!

Innocent Abroad

Here is a little story - in August I upgraded (CW to F) the second segment of an inbound BOS-LHR-TLV. Everything seemed to be fine (including in MyFlights app) but lo and behold I could not check in online for the second segment and when I got to the airport (and that was months after the upgrade) the not-too-polite agent said the ticket was not reissued. It took her almost 30 minutes to sort it out with the UK Ticketing Office.

BTW, I think the ticket was indeed re-issued; MyFlights has an option to check historical changes and I can see a new e-ticket number after the upgrade but who knows...

Next time I will verify with a BA call-centre that everything is in place.