spotwelder

Used to be 1 week for J confirmation, although you had to remind them of it.
Not on concorde or Nigeria.

Wish it worked for QFs who do their flights with BA. It is almost worth a few BAH DOHs for the hell of it. Thanks for finding that it is now a Silver benefit. I used to use it a lot as a Gold, pre moving to Australia.

hfly

As I wrote above, BA is the ABSOLUTE WORST with these guarantees. I do not particularly like LH, however they have seen A LOT of J revenue from me the past few years due to this feature.

Voda_boy

This is a very old thread, but want to check if this is still a valid benefit for gold card holders?

corporate-wage-slave

Yes it is, but it remains of limited value, given there aren't so many full flights. When you do come across a full flight then just watching the loads or using one of the various alerts on flying apps will probably be as good.

Swanhunter

It’s also quite painful to take advantage of, so the benefit is *very* limited. Waitlisting is much more successful if you qualify.

PUCCI GALORE

How so painful Sugar? I suppose that you pay the full Y (or J ) fare? I really do not know how it works so if you could let me know? Can you invoke this at the airport for example. I just want to know in case there was an emergency and I had to be aboard a flight.

corporate-wage-slave

It was always at 24 hours remove minimum anyway, so you couldn't do it at the airport. Prems can get their BA contact to work magic at short notice but even they have to call up. Its main format now is as a priority waitlist code, which from memory is PA for Prems, Golds and corporates, PC for Silver, PD for Bronze and PE for everyone else on the waitlist. The waitlist is then prioritised by that then time of booking, so a PE will never clear if there is a PA on the list. Few flights are completely static, sometimes the flight is waitlist closed (not sure but I think PA can still get on) but there is a very high chance of getting on to a flight if you are Gold and waitlisted. It's been a while since I've needed to use this so some details are probably incorrect.

The world of LCC and flight expansion has largely got away from the "expat flights on public school holidays" factor, where some sharp elbows were needed months in advance of departure, typically by those with much practice with said appendages.

Voda_boy

In a situation such as France being put into quarantine, and with just over 24 hours notice, do you think BA would honour it assuming all flights sold out.

I’m currently in Europe in a country not on the “quarantine” list, but things could well change, and it would be reassuring to think I could use this benefit (even if it’s expensive).

corporate-wage-slave

Waitlisting would probably work. In the case of France BA did have quite a few spare seats today, until about midday, it wasn't a complete sellout, and that's not taking into account places like GVA.

Over in the Coronavirus forum there is a thread on the UK self isolation process, you will normally have a hetter headstart following that thread than any shiny card.

CCayley

This is the sort of benefit I really wish didn't exist, even though I qualify for it. What on earth induces anyone to think they are so important that they would demand someone else be turfed off a busy flight just because they 'absolutely have' to be given a seat?

cauchy

I imagine what they'd do is move the CE/ET boundary up by one row, downgrading 4 people in the process, and then hoping to use the 2 middle seats for full-fare Y. Would probably make BA some money to deliberately overbook in this way.

flying_pig

I’d follow this advice and have a TA waitlist you (ideally in both J and Y, or if long haul F and J). In the pre-pandemic world I had many last second bookings on many full flights, and thankfully there hasn’t been one single time that waitlists in full fare haven’t cleared...

Swanhunter

The challenge was you (or your TA) finding someone on the phone who knew what to do. And then when the request was submitted it might get cancelled/rejected. I tried it a couple of times to no avail and then decided waitlisting was the only option that worked (and even then needed a decent TA).

Voda_boy

Apologies for my ignorance, but how does wait listing work? Do you call up for a full fare ticket (or other ticket classes available?) and then ask to be added to the wait list?

corporate-wage-slave

Yes. Your best bet is to call up and ask to be booked on a flight B that you will reluctantly take if flight A is full, hopefully flight B won't be full fat Y, maybe it's H or something similar. You then ask to be priority waitlisted for flight A. If flight A clears you may be lucky and not have to pay anything more, but if only the Y inventory is released then you'd have to pay extra to get the confirmed ticket.