MSE News: British Airways to charge passengers up to £18 to pre-select a seat

SW17

Gillovski wrote: »

When I pay over £500 - £700 + for a flight which is not a budget flight, I find it annoying to then pay extra for my seat allocation. Or try and find internet connection to book in 24 hrs. NOT always possible. This didn't happen yrs ago, you booked yr seat when you booked the flt. Previously I preferred window, but now after a hip op and needing to get up and move a bit for other pax comfort I opt for aisle. My flts are 5 1/2 - 9 hrs (ME or N. America). Would you be happy with me asking you to move every hour or so as I wasn't able to get aisle seat.

I guess your alternative to paying is to fly a different carrier to BA, one which doesn't charge for advance seat selection. Of course, that's a slightly different subject to the one in this thread, as nothing has changed (this time) regarding seat selection on BA for the routes you are flying.

Steam_is_King

I am so disgusted with BA's behaviour, I've just written the following to them..........

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]British Airways
Customer Relations (S506)
PO Box 1126
Uxbridge
UB8 9XS [/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Dear Sirs,[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Re: Confirmation No.XXXXXX, Gatwick-Antigua-Gatwick,[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I write to complain in the strongest possible terms about the debilitating experience of attempting to book seats on these flights. Having made a reservation and paid for Jan 16 Club World flights for my wife and I we then found that our seats were not necessarily even together unless we reserved and paid extra for them. We had asked XXXX Worldwide Travel to book a pair of seats to the side of the cabin going out and two in the centre coming back but, at the time, none had been released.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Having heard nothing, in September I looked at your website and discovered that outbound there were only a few seats released so took two of them but not in our favoured positions. There were only three seats available for our return flight but these were in front of bassinet positions & couldn't be booked when selected. After several attempts to speak to a person at BA, I persevered today & finally your 'phone was answered but all I was told was to keep trying but often seats aren't released until between 14 and 1 day before the flight.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I'm sure your days are spent carrying out BA business but I lead a very busy life working for others and I don't have the time (or inclination) to log into the BA website repeatedly for months on end in the hope that someone in your organisation might release seats. If the aircraft type is known and is flying that day, then why are you holding back the availability of the seats?[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]You have had over £5000 of my money sitting in your bank since early August 2015 for a service you will deliver in January 2016 and you will be charging me an extra £312 for seats I can't select unless I live on your website with my credit card handy.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I have to observe that your customer facing processes are now far worse than the early days of Ryanair at less than 100th the cost.[/FONT]

jpsartre

Steam_is_King wrote: »

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif] If the aircraft type is known and is flying that day, then why are you holding back the availability of the seats?[/FONT]

It's a perk for high status holders who can book these seats at any time, it helps to prevent late bookers from being stuck in the worst seats and it allows BA some flexibility when it comes to seating families and travel partners together.

It's a pretty over-the-top complaint for what basically amounts to you not being able to get the seat you want right now. Tough but it will always be that way for some people. You don't need to live by computer either, check back 3 days before departure and all available seats should be bookable.

zagfles

Steam_is_King wrote: »

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]You have had over £5000 of my money sitting in your bank since early August 2015 for a service you will deliver in January 2016 and you will be charging me an extra £312 for seats I can't select unless I live on your website with my credit card handy.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I have to observe that your customer facing processes are now far worse than the early days of Ryanair at less than 100th the cost.[/FONT]

Yes it does seem like BA are trying to emulate the budget airlines' practices but not their prices!

SW17

zagfles wrote: »

Yes it does seem like BA are trying to emulate the budget airlines' practices but not their prices!

Well, not many budget carriers with a long haul flatbed business class product, but BA are unusual (possibly unique) in charging most of their non-status customers for advance seat assignments in business class. It's been that way for a long time now.

jpsartre

[Just to be clear, they only charge if you wish to prebook a seat prior to online check-in opening. After that everyone can pick seats free-of-charge*.


*EDIT: Unless you have a HBO fare.

zagfles

SW17 wrote: »

Well, not many budget carriers with a long haul flatbed business class product,

I'm sure Molly is planning it - a "sky dorm" (which is all a "flatbed" is anyway really ) but perhaps with bunks - I've sure you could fit as many in horizontally as you currently do vertically!

but BA are unusual (possibly unique) in charging most of their non-status customers for seat assignments in business class. It's been that way for a long time now.

It's fair enough to charge £5-10 or so for seat assignments when you're paying £30 for the flight, but when you're paying over £1000 for the flight, not only do they want to charge an extra £78 (by the looks of it) for choosing your seat, it seem they play silly games with how and when they release the seats you can choose!

It's worse than Ryanair! At least Ryanair doesn't have any of this "status" nonsense. I think they let you choose any available seat on the plane. Not that I'd know as I never pay.

richardw

BA are certainly going for the additional revenue streams with seat selection price rises and charging for premium meals in economy.

SW17

zagfles wrote: »

I'm sure Molly is planning it - a "sky dorm" (which is all a "flatbed" is anyway really ) but perhaps with bunks - I've sure you could fit as many in horizontally as you currently do vertically!

It's fair enough to charge £5-10 or so for seat assignments when you're paying £30 for the flight, but when you're paying over £1000 for the flight, not only do they want to charge an extra £78 (by the looks of it) for choosing your seat, it seem they play silly games with how and when they release the seats you can choose!

It's worse than Ryanair! At least Ryanair doesn't have any of this "status" nonsense. I think they let you choose any available seat on the plane. Not that I'd know as I never pay.

Not that Ryanair are going long haul anytime soon, but safe to say their seat reservation fee would go up if they did.

BA are out of step with their competitors on this, and I don't think it's a good policy, but they show no signs of backing down so they appear to believe it doesn't hurt them. You can still choose for free at checkin of course, and the fee doesn't apply to flexible business class tickets (though these would be more expensive than the poster above has paid).

Status benefits won't go away on BA, but they've already taken steps to reduce the number of people with status, and wouldn't be surprised to see them go further with that.