abc193

I've got a flight next month in CE with the OH for a special occasion and 1A & D have already been taken.

I tried to select 1C/F for myself (gold) and the OH (silver), hoping that we would be able to swap with 1A/D once onboard. The flight is on an A320 so I'm not aware of any specific benefits to AC/DF, compared to the E90 for example (although we would happily give up the 2CD side if this was the case), but please correct me if there are other considerations to take into account so we don't end up sitting apart for the flight!

However, when I try to do so I get an error message online. I'm able to move myself to row 1, but not the OH as well, despite having booked row 1 for both of us when travelling on the same PNR in the past.

Is this due to TS coming into affect for the OH despite us being on the same PNR? And is there anyway around this if so? Will give the gold line a call but just wanted to see what the likelihood of them being able to help is before doing so.

Thanks

scottishpoet

How ling till the flight? If its more than 72 hours then TS is not impacting this.

Swanhunter

SKT-DK

I am sure it is easier to inconvenience others to get what the OP wants, than to just accept another vacant row... (sarcasm may occur..)

abc193

We have indeed taken a vacant row, but was surprised that I couldn't select the seats as mentioned above.

The issue is not so much for me, but for the OH as he is significantly taller. We would normally choose to travel in ET exit rows on SH flights, but opted for CE this time as it is a special occasion. I was hoping we could sit in row 1 having only recently qualified for gold.

I personally didn't think it was a huge inconvenience for someone to move to the opposite window/aisle seat but realised others may have differing views which is why I asked as well..

antichef

At this stage I think you will find that row 1 is all reserved for golds, because it is the only row with marginally better legroom. If you want to sit together pick another row, or if you want your friend to have longer legroom then book the one seat in row 1 for yourself and swap seat with him onboard. 1C has marginally more facility for stretching legs.

If I am sitting in row 1 I would swap for any other seat in that row but if you ask me to swap for any row further behind you will not succeed! There are plenty of prior threads about seat poachers etc.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, there's going to be a range of reactions to that, from "oh yes, sure, be my guest" through to "I booked this seat months ago, why should I be mucked about by you?". And most people, most of the time, would be somewhere in between. So given you were later to book / get status I'd simply work out more clearly your hierarchy of needs. If it's for the greater space of row 1, then the trade off is not seating together. Should this be a trip to BRU then it wouldn't really matter I would suggest, IST would be different. If that's not acceptable then you're going to be further back but sat together. But we don't know much about this flight - it's possible the other passengers would move or change flights, it's possible the curtain will go down to the first exit row. Either way, the Gold line is most unlikely to be able to help, from the information provided.

vintagepilot

I think much of this is down to the behaviour of the website. We are in the same gold/silver row 1 boat. The website shows both front row seats available (as I could choose either) but it is not clever enough to stop me putting her in 1K, but then throws up the error message when I click confirm - although annoyingly, as usual, it doesn't say what the error is. If I do a dummy booking logged out, or on a different browser, 1K is shown as unavailable, as I would expect. You could try a dummy booking and see which seats are available.

antichef

vintagepilot, the OP has the same problem as you and will therefore get the same results. With seat 1K I assume you are taking a First class seat? They are only available for a gold, and thus they will let you, as a gold, see all that are available to a gold and will let you sit yourself in any one of them. But because you have a non-gold on the same booking reservation they will throw the error and prevent you completing the non-gold seating in a "reserved for gold" seat. Unfortunately there has never been a simple error message explaining this flaw displayed to users and lots of people have wasted many hours trying all sorts of work-arounds (without success!). Me included when I first tried this on the 1A/1K seating for me as gold and OH as a Blue.

When you are logged out it naturally shows that 1K is not available to you as you are not showing your status to the seating machine as a gold, which confirms that it is working as planned.

abc193

It seems I may have focussed too much in my original post on wishing to sit together (now happily seated in row 2) vs the ability for gold members to book as per the terms on the BA website and have free seat selection for the party when travelling on the same flight and in the same booking class (with the notable exception of 1A/K in F).

I know it is normally possible to book row 1 in CE for others regardless of status so was wondering if this seating situation was simply a quirk in the IT system or if the row 1 selection benefits were only applicable if seated next to each other etc.. We don't do much SH flying either so I'm more familiar with what's available in CW/F, particularly as leg room isn't such an issue there.

As it stands, we're more than happy with the current seats (with seat alerts on EF set up!) and it was more out of curiosity that I originally checked and posted here. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to change the date of this flight (with row 1 seats previously) so I do fully appreciate others booked earlier than I did and clearly have every right to the seats they have already reserved.

I would never dream of asking someone to swap for a seat further back that was a material downgrade for them, but seat swapping in the same row where there is no discernible benefit/loss seemed a bit more nuanced.

scottishpoet

1K will not be available on a CE flight so its possible these two issues unrelated

corporate-wage-slave

It is more nuanced, yes. But still there can be strong preferences involved nevertheless - I'd be a bit miffed (politely of course) if I was asked to move along from window seat 1A or 1F for example since I do like seeing the world go by. Particularly if there were pairs of seats right behind! If it was LHR-NCL in the dark I'd probably be a lot more willing. But without knowing the flight I'm not seeing any quirks here, it just looks like you have company in CE.

Workie Ticket

I am Gold and I am travelling with my wife who is Bronze to Madrid in March. I have been able to reserve seats for both of use in row 1 for the NCL-LHR and LHR-NCL sectors and I ave also had full choice with no restrictions on the 777s from LHR-MAD and MAD-LHR, though we are hoping for seats in the F cabin to open up.

I don't understand why I can reserve 2 seats in Row 1 and you can't though.

Due to the cabin layout you are likely to be knocked by passing passengers during boarding in 1C, so that may make someone think twice about swapping into that seat.

abc193

Were the seats you reserved in row 1 together?

Our seat map per EF is below.. I can only assume the system didn't like me trying to put a non-gold member next to a gold member that wasn't me!

As far as seat swapping goes the mere thought of ending up in a seat poaching/DYKWIA thread has been enough to put me off the idea!

Workie Ticket

Yes, ID and IF. That makes sense now.

In that situation I would probably limit myself to asking the person in 1A if they would mind moving to 1F. I wouldn't ask anyone to move from 1D to 1C.