Long haul daytime flight tomorrow (work! Not Hols)

A couple of days ago I checked booking to nab an aisle seat. Stumped up the £29 to claim one, as there were only two aisle seats left.

Lo and behold, checked in this morning and LOADS of seats available for free.

Contacted BA on Twitter to grumble about this. They told me availability changes frequently.

So, about 40 people decided to cancel their bookings where they had paid to reserve their seats?

I smell a rat.
😠

😭

I don’t think they release all the seats for pre-booking.

They have been charging for seats reservations for years. Want the seat you like, you pay. Same as most airlines these days.

I thought they’d done this for years too?

You’ve ruined your chance of a free upgrade to club class now but go smile and chat with them in booking, mention it’s a chore having to travel with work when you’d prefer to be at home with your family. Good luck.

Race to the bottom. I bit it with a family trip to USA as one of the kids is now old enough to get legitimately separated plus I absolutely love window gazing across Greenland and N. America. £300 quid extra for both ways…

The wording for seat allocation on the Basic fare is designed to make you think you’ll be lucky to be together though I am aware they try harder than the mob who started all this.

They have been charging for seats reservations for years

No they haven’t

Or your buying shit tickets.

Seadog are you on a seaman’s ticket?

You’ve ruined your chance of a free upgrade to club class now but go smile and chat with them in booking, mention it’s a chore having to travel with work when you’d prefer to be at home with your family. Good luck.

Do let me know -has that ever worked for you ?

Don’t you mean it’s cheaper to give up the reserved seats?

When I went to the US last, the reserved seat prices were the same as usual but the non-reserved seats were much cheaper than I was expecting.

I fly plenty with BA and every time I book there is the option to reserve your seat and pay or not depending on your points. Nice mention of “shit tickets” or what I book.

My company are not renound for paying more than they have to.

I’ve never had to pay for an aisle seat.

I occasionally pay to sit near the front (not business but the premium shit seats)dependant on where I’m flying into …..some places it can be the difference between a 40 min passport check and 3 hours waiting.

Do let me know -has that ever worked for you ?

Yup it was a tip given to me by a BA attendant. Basically be very nice and chatty, add a little story.

But has it actually worked.

I’ve seen so many people try it and I’ve seen so many people kiss arse and get no where.

It’s almost like they all give out that tip to annoy their colleagues.

When I flew down to Angola frequently, once or twice a year I’d get the fanfare at the gate as I put my ticket through….bumped up to business class.

But that was all based on frequent flying and decided before I interacted with anyone from the airline.

My understanding is that as per trail_rat there is a very strict hierarchy of who gets upgraded and why.  Smiling and being nice at check-in isn’t going to get Joe average upgraded if Gold card flyer is also in the cheap seats for once even if they’re not in their Sunday best.

I’ve been upgraded a few times but that was when I flew a lot and it was invariably when the plane was very full.

If you want a specific seat more than 24 hours in advance I thought you had to pay for a while now though. (I generally don’t take notice though).

every scheduled airline I’ve used has been paid-for to reserve seat in advance, or free when doing online checkin within 24hrs prior to flight.

no clue if the seat preference in the account / silver card settings gets used, but the last time I recall not getting seat preference was a standby flight about 15 years ago. oh or the bump to cattle class due to overbooking cos I was dumb enough to checkin at the airport, which gave me a voucher worth enough for another return flight.

unaccompanied minors etc. get pre-allocated seat as if it were a paid-for in advance reservation.

I have literally just read this and checked our upcoming NZ flights. Emirates have just charged me £384 for book seas for my family. Tried Live chat to see if it was absolutely necessary, and the reply was, that they can’t guarantee us being sat together without paying. I’m sure it would have been fine, but my wife didn’t want to risk it!
There goes my new Hope brakes this month then!!

You can’t have it both ways. You want cheap tickets and value cheap tickets above all else. Airline’s have to make money…they have people to pay, airports to pay, fuel to buy, aircraft to buy etc. so airlines are having to look into more and more ways to make revenue. They know that if they keep the services inclusive and increase ticket prices then people wont buy and will go low cost. So they down spec the service for a given ticket price.

What you do get from airlines like BA are decent airports to fly from and a good frequency in their schedule….that is where the value of the traditional airlines like BA are. If you only fly once in a while and can be flexible on your travel times then you wont value that, but if you are in any way a frequent flyer they you’ll easily value convenience over ticket price…especially if your company is paying.

I think what’s happened here is that the normal tickets are X, and a cheaper ticket without guaranteed seating together, and probably with hand baggage only (if it’s the same ticket I bought) is available at Y. The OP, with little knowledge of the airline industry has decided that the glass is definitely half empty, expects his fare to be Y regardless, and sees that he is being charged X-Y just to have reserved seats because reserved seats used to be free. But he’s ignoring the fact that the price always used to be X when reserved seats were ‘free’.

This is how it was with me anyway – the reserved seating option was the same price as previous trips on the same route, and the non-reserved option was way cheaper. So I accepted inferior ticket for much less money. I can’t see an issue here.

Definitely not a new thing. I’ve paid to reserve seats every time as far as I can remember, going back 6/7 years. There is the option to wait till varying lengths of time before the flight to book them for free, depending on your tier within the rewards/FF program, but for a regular punter, you pay all the way up till 24 hrs before.

I think the grievance in this case though is that the prepay option implied limited availability on seats and yet the subsequent check-in showed far greater availability such that prepayment wasn’t necessary.

Or your buying shit tickets

Lol. Whatever.

BA have been charging for seat selection on transatlantic flights for years. Good get free pick of seats including the extra legroom. Silver get free pick of any normal seats. Bronze get to pick one week out IIRC. Everyone else gets to pick for free 24h before on check in.

I dislike flying BA now I no longer have silver status as it’s just as shit as all the others. Especially for short haul it’s actually worse than EJ or RA.

Also, the chat tip for upgrades. Not a thing. It’s done automatically based on status and flight fullness and if you just got upgraded to your status.

Gold Status in prem / economy on a full floght will get bumped up to get on another econ ticket.

But has it actually worked.

Like I said Yup.

I’m also not a frequent flyer by a very long stretch.

NZ flights. Emirates have just charged me £384 for book seas for my family

Funny. We last week chose seats for our flights to/from NZ (Emirates/Quantas) and didn’t have to pay extra.

We arrived in Costa Rica with BA a few hours ago. Decided to gamble on the free allocation and we got 2 together, including an aisle, and plenty of other Ok free options even though the plane was very full. I’ve noticed that 777s and 787s are still fairly quiet and comfortable right at the back. Last 2 long haul trips we’ve chosen 2 seats across the aisle from each other coming home and have had 3 seats each to stretch out on.

I have literally just read this and checked our upcoming NZ flights. Emirates have just charged me £384 for book seas for my family. Tried Live chat to see if it was absolutely necessary, and the reply was, that they can’t guarantee us being sat together without paying. I’m sure it would have been fine, but my wife didn’t want to risk it!
There goes my new Hope brakes this month then!!

I had a similar situation but opted not to bother as I was taking the family to Italy across 2 flights. I couldn’t really imagine anybody would insist on keeping their reservation if it meant sitting next to one of my kids with me or their mum nowhere near, if it came down to it 🙂 As it was, we got booked in fine all sitting together 🙁

I have literally just read this and checked our upcoming NZ flights. Emirates have just charged me £384 for book seas for my family.

This is basically a total scam, they won’t sit kids on their own, unaccompanied minors need extra supervision and its a hassle they will avoid.

So if a family of four is flying then worse case scenario is they will split the parents.

I’ve never paid to sit together, more than half the time we sit together anyway.

My company runs a cheapest available fare policy…(at least for us cattle) and reservation fee’s can’t be claimed using the software so they are paid by the employee.

My gripe with BA is they won’t let me pay to choose seats. Looking at UK – SAn Francisco in October. At 6ft3 I find standard economy seats are very uncomfortable for long haul. Happy to pay for exit row seats but only BA Gold/Sivler/Bronze cardholders are allowed to book exit seats until shortly before the flight.

So do I book flights now but then find when exit row reservation open for plebs find there are none left? Probably fly Aer Lingus instead where I can book exit row seats at time of booking.

BA do not keep their policy on seating charges a secret. And you can choose not to pay and select free of charge at online check in. I’m not sure how one can book flights and not grasp this really as it is made very clear.

The real scam with BA is that they still charge to pre select seats in the business class cabin.

Interestingly BA will let you pick seats for free for the whole party if you are travelling with an infant. An infant ticket is really cheap. 😉 so you don’t feel so bad if the baby was to be too ill to travel. For example.

If flying long haul one can stick with airlines who allow free seat selection. Qatar, Delta, American Airlines, United and Virgin being some good examples.

As for upgrades…
1) Gold status
2) book a fully flex economy ticket

I.e. Spend lots of money with the airline and they might upgrade you.

I just bought some BA tickets (Rome in October) and was surprised to be able to reserve my favourite seats (aisle, emergency row) for free. I’m sure I always had to pay, in the past.

But has it actually worked.

Upgrading is normally automatic and based on points / miles etc. Whenever I’ve been upgraded I’ve done or said nothing, the self check in machine in T5 just issues the upgraded ticket without so much as a smile required.

the self check in machine in T5 just issues the upgraded ticket without so much as a smile required.

i got a big red cross there a couple of years back flying to washington DC. had forgotten to check in online, was there quite late and figured I’d been bumped off. went to the service desk.

got asked if I wanted the good news or the bad news. winced and said good news? upgrade from premium economy to business. when I inquired what the bad news was, she said there wasnn’t any, just wanted to see what sort of person I was..

still wonder if I would have got bumped off that flight if I’d opted for bad news.

Whenever I’ve been upgraded I’ve done or said nothing, the self check in machine in T5 just issues the upgraded ticket without so much as a smile required.

Yeah having a polite conversation with a ticket machine probably won’t make a great deal of difference. Works with humans though.

Some top tips that have worked for me:

Reward flights – if you have sufficient points, book outward in economy and return in Business – three times I’ve been upgraded to business on the way out too.

If your company insists on you fly economy, make sure you have a business case to get a fully flexible ticket. Arrive at the airport with enough time to swap your full fare economy ticket for a lower “this plane and this plane only” business fare, for a small fee. Used to do this regularly, flying back from Budapest (was about £25 some days) and Moscow (usually about £60). Not sure if it’s still that cheap as it’s been a while since I’ve done that much travelling.

I typically am booked on a seaman’s ticket.

I have tried numerous times to plead for an upgrade, both subtly and directly, and never, ever, been upgraded. Just bad luck I think as some of my colleagues have had upgrades now and then.

My main gripe really is the suspicious way that the number of available seats was very low 2 days before flying, yet when check in opened 24 hours before flying there were ample seats to select for free. Where did they all come from?

Unfortunately, as we fly on a variety of airlines and routes, getting enough tier points in any one year to get promoted never happens. Despite flying long haul 13 times a year I still languish on the bottom tier for BA, KLM, and Virgin… 😭

I never understood the want for aisle seats. You have to move everytime someone wants out.

Next to the window for me so maximise undisturbed time.

Flying on a single alliance is key, fortunately we get to book our own flights, and sit near the front so 2 roundtrips is normally all I need to keep ba silver. Even then i only got upgraded to first once, but the lounge, bags and seat selection for family trips makes it worthwhile.

The top status on american guarantees upgrades if they’re available 5 days in advance, but none of the European carriers match that

I never understood the want for aisle seats.

Easier to stretch your legs, without having to stand up

My main gripe really is the suspicious way that the number of available seats was very low 2 days before flying, yet when check in opened 24 hours before flying there were ample seats to select for free. Where did they all come from?

I understand why this looks dodgy and is annoying to the OP, because its like the Emirates example upthread. The agent / website implies there is a risk of not sitting together / a full cabin etc when actually there are rules in place / systems at work here.

BA don’t offer every seat to prebook to all customers. There is a thing called Theoretical Seating in the Altea FLY system that reserves ‘better’ seats for frequent flyers to book, and even within that Golds can book a wider range of seats than Silver and then Bronze. Then at T-72 the Theoretical Seating algorithm kicks in and does the seating placeholders for thenumber of passengers it expects, with blocked seats next to frequent flyers etc. It is only at check in all seats open up, to the point towards the end of checking in an overbooked flight the algorithm will unblock seats next to frequent flyers. So if as a non frequent flyer you look at the seat map 2 days before travel, it looks full but when you come to check in you have a choice of seats, but the cabin will end up full. I suggest you sign up to ExpertFlyer and have a look at their seat map (free version).

Also on long haul BA charge for economy exit row seats up to Silver but they don’t block them from other passengers paying unless TS is blocking the seat next to a frequent flyer. If the seat map shows you can’t buy the exit row, it is unavailable. Whereas 2-3 days out it might become available at check in.

Aisle seats mean I can get up and stretch my legs at will. Also, I seem to turn into a total insomniac once I step into an aircraft, so never bothered by others wanting to get up.

I try and get the aisle on the inboard section, so at worst it’s only one person getting up.

@konagirl, interesting reading there. Are you an insider with the industry?