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British Airways - Seat Selection Rip Off!
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Its our own fault.
Thanks to price comparison websites, they all want to show they are the cheapest. They do this by reducing price and clawing it back through other methods like choosing your seat.
It allows me to choose not to pay for hold luggage if I don't need to take it.
It allows me to choose not to pay for meals if I don't want to eat them.
It allows me to maybe sit with my travelling companion without having the cost secretly built into the price. And if it turns out that we're not sat together - well, we're not joined at the hip and are probably going to spend an awful lot of time together over the next few days or weeks so a few hours apart is neither here not there.Its our own fault.
Hotels are the same - used to pay £80 a night.
Now its £75 which seems great until they hit me with £15 for breakfast that used to be included in the £80 and then £10 a night for parking.
I just book elsewhere.
Just because I paid £x once doesn't mean that I expect to get exactly the same next time for the same price or cheaper.
If a company price a room at £x and make it clear that it excludes breakfast and parking, I can't see the issue.
Where I would agree it was wrong is if those extras aren't not clearly priced.
But on sites like Booking.com, for the rooms I've considered booking, it seems to be pretty clear whether breakfast is included or not and if it isn't, the price is shown.
I wouldn't necessarily book elsewhere.
I'd book what I thought was the best price overall - including the basic price and add-ons.0 -
shaun_from_Africa wrote: »A lot of people would disagree with you on that.
I fly BA to Trinidad on a very regular basis and the flight goes via St Lucia, a very popular tourist destination and there are very few business travelers on the flights yet premium economy (World traveler +) is often the first class of tickets to sell out.
Some people are happy to pay because they see it as worth it, other people don't think it's worth it.
If you (and lots of others) think it's worth paying for Premuim Economy, then it's worth it to you and to them.
I view paying for seat selection in exactly the same way.
If it's worth it to you, pay it.
If you don't think it's worth it, don't pay.
As I've said up-thread, I would consider paying for seat selection on long-haul, not on short-haul.
But don't shout 'rip-off' because you want the service but don't like the price.0 -
I'm lucky in that I don't have to pay for picking a seat on BA (unless I want an emergency exit row) due to being silver status in the executive club but before I reached this, I was always more than happy to pay on long haul flights as the possibility of being stuck in the middle of the centre aisle for 10+ hours wasn't something I fancied.
IMO, paying to pick a seat or paying for a WT+ or business/first class ticket is no different to buying any other service or commodity.
If you have the money and think it's worth paying for then providing that it's optional, spend your money however you see fit.
If this wasn't the case, we would all be living in identical houses and all driving base model cars.0
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