capri_rob

Just booked a weekend hop from BIrmingham to Belfast in March.
Not hugely expensive, used Avios to knock a few quid off no problems.
Single class ( economy only ) cabin.
Booked ( again ) with my OH as the lead passenger using the Silver status she gained in December.
Went all the way through, selected the seats at no cost, Paid, and then as soon as the booking went through and got confimed we got a message back stating “we were unable to reserve your seats, please try again via manage my booking” - which then asks you to pay to select the seats !

I’ve just paid it. I dont have the energy for dealing with the call centre again.

Very frustrating though that you make choices about who you fly with to get you loyalty perks - which then dont work.

mikeyfly

I would’ve waited a day or two to see if it settled and worked gratis - not sure the need to pay for seat choice this far out.

corporate-wage-slave

Did she log in using her account to allocate the seats?

PGberkshire

Raise a case online and ask for a refund

capri_rob

yep. Booking made under her account ( silver ) and logged back in under her account for MMB.

corporate-wage-slave

OK, well file a complaint and ask for the seating fees to be refunded.

ba.com/complaints

capri_rob

Done. Didn’t actually know contact that way was an option - lets see how quick the response is. Thanks

capri_rob

Submitted complaint online giving details including booking ref, got an email back within 24 hours saying that they could not process the complaint without further information - but didnt say what further information they needed.
i have submitted a further complaint which is an end to end walk through of the booking experience.

In a nutshell though the complaint is that a BAEC member with silver status has had to pay for seat selection in order to reserve seats at the point of booking - which should be free.

BA can easily see this from the BAEC membership number used to make the booking so quite frustrate at having to spell it out.

Anonba

For future reference i would ignore trying to select seats in the booking process. Make the booking and then try via Manage My booking.

CV3V

Have a similar issue at the moment with a booking. Although both travellers are silver status a CS advisor says on the booking it shows as bronze and is a 'glitch', deleting BAEC number and re entering doesnt work. In the end seat reservation done as a manual request to the 'seating team'! Hope it sorts itself out to avoid issues when trying to get into lounge (some of sectors in WT+).

theoryjoy

I am having similar problems with my BA Executive Silver Status. I achieved Silver Status in mid-April 2022 and have made a number of bookings on BA, Finnair, and Qantas since then. Seat selection is showing for an additional charge. I rang the BA Executive Club at the weekend and was told that there was a known issue which would be resolved in three days. I've just checked and it is still trying to charge me for seat bookings on BA, Finnair and Qantas. I spent 2 hours on the phone to BA at the weekend. If this is a known issue, it doesn't seem to be easily resolved. The call centre tried removing my BA Exec number from my bookings and then added them again (only to still show bronze or ruby status). My Qantas booking is showing a ruby status rather than sapphire. I'm worried I won't be able to access the lounge on forthcoming flights and additional luggage privileges won't be recognised. Doesn't seem like this will be easily or quickly resolved.

RABC

I have Silver status but it took 35 mins on the 'phone today to book the seats without paying as there is a "glitch" in the system.

I was told this glitch was only a few days old but reading this thread it seems to have been going on for a while.

hi_fly

I also recently upgraded from Bronze to Silver and none of my future bookings reflect this new status. It's quite frustrating. Has anyone had more success at getting this resolved with BA? I've just tried contacting them via Twitter to see if my profile can be corrected.

KARFA

does your silver status show correctly on your BAEC homepage?

one way which can make this work is removing and re-adding your BAEC number from a booking. you used to be able to do this on AY MMB but I think that it doesn't work anymore. Try RAM, RJ, QF MMB instead if so.

hi_fly

Thanks KARFA. Yes it does show correctly as Silver on my BAEC homepage. Have tried removing and re-adding BAEC membership number via RJ but hasn't helped. As per a previous poster, on QF showing as Ruby OW status so definitely a back-end issue here. Will await resolution via BA but frustrating their IT systems are so disconnected.