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Last month I booked return flights from Heathrow to New York for me and my son, departing in a fortnight.
I was a Gold member at the time and reserved emergency exit seats in the World Traveller cabin.
Two weeks ago, I was downgraded to Silver.
I was checking my booking this morning (to request special meals) and noticed we now had unallocated seats.
When I went to my booking on the website (after logging in) I’m told that “Gold and Silver Members can choose seats for free from the time of booking” however the seats I originally booked are not reserved but cost £113 each per flight.
After eventually finding the Silver telephone number on the web (does anyone know where to find it in the App?) I was told that the reason for my seat reservations being cancelled is because only Gold members can reserve emergency exit seats on long haul flights. I said I was a Gold member at the time of booking and my seat reservation should be honoured. The call handler would not change their position so I’ve filed a complaint with BA but wonder if it will get addressed before our flights. If I’d known about this at the time of booking I might have selected a different airline. Does anyone have any advice on this? Apologies if this issue has been covered in previous posts. I’ve joined the forum today and this is my first post.This happens on a regular basis and the call handler is correct.
What likely happened is the plane type was changed which means a status check takes place before reallocating seats.
And since you no longer qualify for gold seating benefits you were moved.
You’ll also lose the ability to use the F wing to check in and the F lounges.
Yes an occupational hazard I’m afraid. Check a few times around T-72 when the flight transfers to airport control and the Theoretical Seating package kicks in. I’m not sure if that affects your situation – I suspect not but no harm in keeping an eye on it
Then check in online as early as possible and hope to get lucky. You can choose bulkhead seats as Silver, but in WT they come with a high risk of close baby proximity.
I think this “complaint” would probably sit in @JDB’s “unreasonable” basket 🤣
Sounds rather entitled to me. If you’re not Gold, you’re not Gold. If you booked a child ticket but they were an adult at the time of the flight would you expect the airline to honour the child fare?
I think this “complaint” would probably sit in @JDB’s “unreasonable” basket 🤣
Indeed. It’s always sensible to check the rules before making a meritless complaint as in a case like this, the passenger is in the wrong as they could easily have ascertained. It’s only status at the time of travel, not booking that counts and any seat allocations made in reliance on status can and do get changed on downgrade of status. Silver has not been able to access these seats without payment for a long time.
It seems that in the past, it was a bit unlucky to get bounced out of seats in this way and it only happened when there was a change of aircraft or some manual seating readjustment, but it’s now a bit more automatic. People wanted IT improvements but many will not be passenger friendly!
I think it’s a reasonable misunderstanding the first time around, based on the wording “Gold and Silver Members can choose seats for free from the time of booking”. As such status at the time of booking clearly does count for some things, but does not override status at the time of travel or in-between if things change.
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