windowontheAside

Let's hope that person isn't me

Misco60

If it's a daytime flight, bear in mind that some people will want to sit on the side facing away from the sun. Not all window seats, even in the same row, are equal. So, you can certainly ask but don't be offended if the passenger in 1A prefers not to move.

vintagepilot

Deleted.

Misco60

I (Gold) will be travelling LGW-MLA with two friends (no status) in a few months' time. When booking the flights I selected seats 1A, 1C and 1D.

A few days ago I received a notification of a seating change, and found that we had been moved to row 3. MMB was still showing the entire first row as available but it would not let me move any of us into that row.

I called the Gold line, who could see that we had been moved, did not know why we had been moved and were able to move us back to row 1. I'd now like to swap the passengers in seats 1A and 1D but, again, MMB won't let me.

I really have no idea what's going on here.

antichef

You really do not need to swap the passengers in 1A and 1D online. You can do it in the real world without any problems when you get there.

Misco60

Yes, I realise that, but it was a precautionary measure just in case I was unable to make the flight at the last moment.

I was just curious - and still am - why we were moved and why I am still unable to change our seats using MMB.

pennineuk

Years ago, when seating on different system, i was told by an agent that you can't assign seats that are not contiguous for a party in one booking. For example, if you had a block of contiguous seats 6ABC free and you tried to book a party of two into 6AC, the system wouldn't let you. Presumably under these circumstances you are trying to 'block' 6B or at least make it unattractive to sit in as a 'middle' seat

windowontheAside

You can certainly do it on BA.com. Mr W and I often choose an aisle and window combination. Not particularly to game the system - but I like a window and he likes an aisle. We can manage to sit apart perfectly well without talking across a neighbour.

Proudelitist

Don't ask them to swap. They wanted it, they selected it. Asking to swap is an imposition if you have no real need. And your being a couple doesn't give you greater entitlement than their being solo.

djb61

I also found this with row 1 on CE. It does appear that every non-gold must be sitting directly next to a gold.
In my case I was travelling with my wife (her and I both GCH at the time) and 2 friends without status all on a single PNR. The entire of row 1 was free, I tried to seat the 2 friends in 1A/C and myself and my wife in 1D/F. As with the OP it would let me select the seats but then gave me an error message when trying to save. I was just about to ring BA and ask when I thought to try shuffling us so that there was 1 GCH in each seat pair, it was perfectly happy with that and let us take all 4 seats, we then just swapped on the plane so that my wife and I were next to each other again.
So it does look like the ability to select row 1 CE for non GCH when a GCH is on the same PNR only works if that person is seated adjacent to the GCH.

gormless

I'm glad this was easy to spot. Made our first First booking and tried to allocate seats. Couldn't do that for row 1 in a 747 IAD to LHR but could book row one in a 777 LHR to DXB. I'm gold, wife is silver.
When does row 1 open up?

abc193

The 747 only has 1A/K in row one, which is why you couldn't select it for your wife, but could select row one on the 777.

These seats are blocked on all F flights to only the GCH (and not accompanying passengers) until T-72 I believe.

bubbah

Is there a way to find out if row 1 A & K are occupied or being held just in case at T72, BA0195 LHR-HOU 20th June. 09.55

BarneyMcGrew

Expert Flyer shows 1A & 1K both occupied as opposed to just blocked.

bubbah

Thank you, much appreciated.