BA's new seating policy and it's effects on OW
 

Hopefully enough of us OneWorld flyers lurk or post on the BA forum, but if you have not been keeping up it seems our friends over at BA have had a new seating policy implemented and the results for those of us who are OneWorld flyers rather than BA flyers, your guaranteed not to be too happy after reading this.

The thread on the BA about the new rules can be found here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=376368

I feel however this justifies a new thread here on the OW forum as the BA board is merely discussing the new policy from their rather than OW perspective.

I have just gotten off the phone to BA to clarify what their new policy is, but it seems that OneWorld flyers (in particular Emerald and Sapphire members) now are given NO preference when it comes to seating. This means that you have the same access to seats as someone with NO status. In my eyes this effectively means that BA has reneged on one of it's OneWorld benefits. I always understand when the best few seats (e.g. row 64 on a BA744) are only made available for a carrier's own top members, but blocking access to huge numbers of seats just is not fair. Personally I feel that should the rest of the alliance should reciprocate and not provide any preferential seating to BA Gold (Emerald) and Silver (Sapphire) members, but I have to admit that I am now just saying this out of spite! ;)

Could I ask those of you who fly BA as an alliance member passenger to complain to BA by writing a letter to the following address or to your local BA Customer Relations contact:

British Airways Customer Relations
P.O. Box 5619
Sudbury
Suffolk
CO10 2PQ
United Kingdom

It might also be worth sending a complaint via the OneWorld Enquiry Form via the following site:

http://www.oneworld.com/ow/contact/form

Minus lounge and check-in privileges, I am now trying to work out what exactly BA provides me for my continued patronage. I would easily qualify for BA Gold, but for various reasons it's best for me to stick to QF for the time being especially as only QF fly to my home city these days.

FWIW, BA's new seating policy can be found here:

https://www.britishairways.com/trave...y/public/en_gb

Notice the absence of OneWorld in the new policy! :mad:

I wasn't aware that preferential seating was a Oneworld elite benefit. Can someone enlighten me?

It has been a benefit since OneWorld was formed. Most carriers block certain seats, e.g. QF block forward cabins generally to OneWorld elites. Often you can also only pre-reserve if you are a OneWorld elite.

The OneWorld page might enlighten you:

http://www.oneworld.com/ow/ffp/oneworld-status

In practise you really need to be a Sapphire or Emerald to get anything really decent though.

Pre-reserved preferential seating*

*In accordance with the individual policy of the oneworld member airline operating the flight.



You learn something new every day - but they do have the asterisk

Well BA used to do it up until last week although if you read the BA thread you will quickly learn that most people (including BA Exec members) were kicked out of their pre-assigned seats. And from experience AY, CX, QF and IB (yes, even the dreaded IB) offer the benefit.

Are you suggesting it is not worth campaigning against a reduction in services?

I'm not suggesting anything. I've been enlightened- I'm happy.

As a PLT who flew BA quite a bit in 2004-2005 while being based at MAD, I was never once offered or able to pre-reserve a seat. My roommates even worked for BA Spain and used to check up on my reservations.

That being said, BA did seem to recognize OW status when giving op-ups. I just never saw anything in terns of seat selection.

I am in the middle of a DONE5 with several BA segments coming up. Until last week neither me nor my partner could select seats on some BA flights (something about the flights having reached their seat allocation limit), and a lot of seats were blocked on others (upper deck exits for example). After Dec 5, my partner could choose from almost any seat on the seat map while I couldn't choose any (we both have the same status). Turns out my AA frequent flyer in Amadeus was only entered for LA and QF, but not for BA (this shows at the top of the itinerary on checkmytrip.com). Even re-entering the number on BA.com didn't fix it, but a call to BA did.

Now, I can also choose from any seat on the BA seat maps, including those previously blocked.

From my experience, it seems to me like things have improved for oneworld elites.

I haven't either. Is there some trick to reserving seats if you're flying BA on a codeshare from AA?

Definitely not for me. I now have a smaller selection of seats and so has my partner. I'm a QF WP (Emerald) and my partner is an AA EXP. This seems to be the case for bookings we have in J as well as Y although I must admit all are Euro short haul flights.

Maybe you never made yourself aquainted with the "Manage my Booking" function which allows you to select the seat you want to pre-assign yourself. Up until last week BA treated Emeralds with the same seat selection as BA Golds and Sapphires with the same as BA Silvers.

You can access MMB from the following address:

http://www.ba.com/mmb

I have not yet had an experience of a BA op-up. I have had one upgrade but I can assure you it was not an op-up! ;)

Get your Amadeus booking reference (i.e. Amadeus PNR) and plug it into the MMB microsite on the BA website. If you made your booking on AA, you should be able to call them to get your Amadeus PNR.

I have six itineraries that I have booked on aa.com (either just BA flights or BA plus other OW carriers) and MMB accepted the AA PNR for every one. I then note the Amadeus number that pops up, just in case I need it for something else.

YMMV.

When did this new policy take effect? I flew BA last week in CE, didn't bother to select a seat and was assigned an excellent seat by BA's computer. Was this under the old or new system? The web page description suggests that no seat is assigned automatically in the new system.