British Airways shoddy family seating policies

[timajackson]

We flew to Dubai a few days ago as a family of 4 and are really enjoying our first stay out here at the at le Royal Meridien.
The flight booking was a mixture of a rescheduled Avios & companion voucher booking for my wife and I and then cash plus miles for the kids. We flew out Premium and are flying back Club and ended up with 2 bookings on different reference numbers. I spoke to BA a number of times to ensure that they would link the bookings together which they did. However it was impossible to choose the kids’ seats on BAs website or check in online as the option wasn’t there (presumably because they are minors) and my wife and I on the same booking reference were allocated seats 5 rows apart in the 5 row premium cabin!
I understand that BA charges for seat reservations depending on tier status but we weren’t expecting or asking to be in front row – just not split up.
It is not difficult to sit a family of 4 either in 1 row of 4 or in 2 rows of 2 in the Premium cabin so the fact we were separated feels like it could only be intentional.
When we arrived at T5 the check in supervisor was very sympathetic but said she could only ‘request on the system’ that we are seated together as she did not have the power to reassign other seats. She pointed us to customer services in departures who said the same. It was eventually sorted at the gate but only after completely unnecessary stress and hours of pointless and wasted calls and being passed from pillar to post.
If EasyJet can keep families together – which they do, there is absolutely no excuse for BA to treat families this way. Despite using miles and vouchers for half the trip, our flights and taxes have still cost us north of £3500 and I don’t feel remotely cared for as a customer. In the middle of a pandemic, how can their policy be to purposefully mix-up family seating? Clearly it is just to force people to pay for the ‘privilege’ of seating together. Regardless of whether I can afford to pay to reserve my seats, I resent being asked to do so as it feels like being taken advantage of. Not a great way to build a good customer relationship. For anyone reading this thinking we are asking for the right to be sat in a particular row, I am not. I would understand being given any row in the cabin if I don’t choose to pay to reserve one, but that doesn’t make splitting up couples or families any more acceptable in my book.

[lcy8737]

So you optimised your trip by combining avios and vouchers to the point where it required your family to be split across two separate bookings? And then you complain about separate bookings being seated separately?

[To dare is to do]

So you think BA have nothing better to do than intentionally annoy it’s customers over seating? It would have cost more in time and effort for staff to sort out your mess than what they would have earned if you had bothered to pay. I got some spare tin foil I can send you I won’t even charge you.

[ChrisC]

How old are the kids? Actual ages as calling them “minors” isn’t specific enough.

Also linking bookings really does nothing. At best it’s a note in the pnr that will only ever get seen if an agent has to go into the booking for another reason.

[dougzz99]

I think this is most likely to be a problem in PE, as the cabin is small and that makes it harder to arrange things. BA as best I’m aware don’t have a method to link bookings, it’s a text note which may not be read, and certainly doesn’t allow you to seat select on the ‘linked’ booking. This is a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation. Can’t you just see the thread “I was moved to allow a family to sit together after I paid £x to book my seats 7 months ago”. All of my rather limited number of witnessed seat dramas have been in the PE cabin.
BA have no such policy to mix families up, it’s just a result of two bookings, and a small cabin making seat allocation more difficult. You seem to think that the ‘family’ card in some way exempts you from what BA offer, which presumably you were aware of when you booked. How would you feel if you were a status passenger or a paying for seat passenger and were moved to accommodate some group of other passengers BA deemed more worthy?

[To dare is to do]

dougzz99 wrote:

I think this is most likely to be a problem in PE, as the cabin is small and that makes it harder to arrange things. BA as best I’m aware don’t have a method to link bookings, it’s a text note which may not be read, and certainly doesn’t allow you to seat select on the ‘linked’ booking. This is a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation. Can’t you just see the thread “I was moved to allow a family to sit together after I paid £x to book my seats 7 months ago”. All of my rather limited number of witnessed seat dramas have been in the PE cabin.
BA have no such policy to mix families up, it’s just a result of two bookings, and a small cabin making seat allocation more difficult. You seem to think that the ‘family’ card in some way exempts you from what BA offer, which presumably you were aware of when you booked. How would you feel if you were a status passenger or a paying for seat passenger and were moved to accommodate some group of other passengers BA deemed more worthy?

That’s what I wanted to say but couldn’t be bothered.

[jj]

I had the opposite problem with Swiss a year or two back on a flight between Athens and Zurich.

My wife and I boarded the plane to find that the seats that we had booked months earlier had been reallocated by the cabin crew to a family. We were separated and both given centre seats between random strangers (this was economy) for a very uncomfortable flight. We had no apology, no attempt to remedy the situation, and no response to my post-flight complaint beyond, ‘Sorry, unavoidable operation reasons…’

So, to be honest, I’m afraid that I don’t have a great deal of sympathy with families who don’t reserve seats in advance but expect others, who have reserved seats, to move out of their way on boarding. And my short-lived experiment of flying with Swiss will not be repeated. BA has always treated me well, so they have the lions share of my flight budget.

[NorthernLass]

I don’t think Easyjet would guarantee seating together on separate bookings. Easier solution would have been for 1 adult to sit with each child, surely? As someone said, it’s hard to comment without knowing the actual ages, but PE cabin is small enough that it wouldn’t matter with older children.
For future reference, if you need to travel on separate PNRs, book each leg for one child and one adult so theoretically BA shouldn’t split you up as per CAA guidelines.

[BuildBackBetter]

lcy8737 wrote:

And then you complain about separate bookings being seated separately?

Should’ve charged OP for re-assigning two seats.

Imagine a family paid for seats and now forced to split.

[timajackson]

Thanks for all the replies.
I probably didn’t make it clear that what we were upset about was that they had split our bookings into 4 separate seats (ie no one sitting together). Surely bookings of 2 people should be sat together by default rather than spread around the cabin. We didn’t care where we sat in the cabin, just that we were not separated and i don’t think that one should have to pay to reserve seats together in a booking of two.
Anyway just returned from a wonderful week in Dubai in the new club suite on an A350 and very pleased we booked the cabins that way round as the experience was so much better. Having tried the premium product, I don’t think it is worth the extra money over economy to be frank. The smaller cabin is nice but that’s about it. Merry Xmas

[NorthernLass]

Glad you had a good time and enjoyed the return journey. My take on the PE sector would be that as it’s a small cabin, most seats were pre-booked by people with status (or paid for), leaving only single seats dotted round the cabin. I think it would only have triggered alarm bells if the children were, say, under 12, which we still don’t know!

[Lady London]

dougzz99 wrote:

I think this is most likely to be a problem in PE, as the cabin is small and that makes it harder to arrange things. BA as best I’m aware don’t have a method to link bookings, it’s a text note which may not be read, and certainly doesn’t allow you to seat select on the ‘linked’ booking. This is a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation. Can’t you just see the thread “I was moved to allow a family to sit together after I paid £x to book my seats 7 months ago”. All of my rather limited number of witnessed seat dramas have been in the PE cabin.
BA have no such policy to mix families up, it’s just a result of two bookings, and a small cabin making seat allocation more difficult. You seem to think that the ‘family’ card in some way exempts you from what BA offer, which presumably you were aware of when you booked. How would you feel if you were a status passenger or a paying for seat passenger and were moved to accommodate some group of other passengers BA deemed more worthy?

Precisely.

[Mikeact]

I have been asked on occasion if I would be happy to move and generally, like most I imagine, not generally a problem. On one occasion I recall, I was whisked up front.

[pigeon]

timajackson wrote:

they had split our bookings into 4 separate seats (ie no one sitting together). Surely bookings of 2 people should be sat together by default rather than spread around the cabin.

Unfortunately, they sell too many seat assignments – either via customers effectively paying for BA status through higher fares, or paying directly for the seats – to provide a decent service to other customers.

As you’ve found out, without status the World Traveller Plus offering isn’t particularly competitive.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 8 months ago by .

[timajackson]

Yep that’s a good summary of the situation.
The return leg was a completely different story with a tiny club suite cabin of just 3 rows in the new A350

• This reply was modified 54 years, 8 months ago by .

[cinereus]

lcy8737 wrote:

So you optimised your trip by combining avios and vouchers to the point where it required your family to be split across two separate bookings? And then you complain about separate bookings being seated separately?

I’ve never understood the obsession with sitting near your children. If it’s so important because they cannot behave themselves without supervision, then it’s only right to pay for seat selection.

[truthbetold]

In Covid times it makes sense for everyone to be seated together in their family group…anything else is more risky for all.

The system can link multiple PNRs together so there is no real excuse for not doing this by default in a large cabin.

[dougzz99]

truthbetold wrote:

In Covid times it makes sense for everyone to be seated together in their family group…anything else is more risky for all.

The system can link multiple PNRs together so there is no real excuse for not doing this by default in a large cabin.

How should a group of 4 be distributed for this to work? Does it vary by aircraft type?

[ChrisC]

I wish people would stop perpetuating the myth that linking bookings is the panacea to all ills. Because it’s not.

Most airline systems like BAs are built upon their original software platforms from the 60s and 70s with add ons on top of add ons. The fancy renderings on apps and website are add ons to the basic software which isn’t that flexible. And they touch that softwear at their peril. And that’s before you get into the GDS (global distribution systems). Incidently many LCCs like Easyjet aren’t part of the GDS systems like Amadeus and Sabre.
.
‘Linking’ PNRs is the equiva=elent of sticking a post it note on the fridge saying ‘buy milk’ and hoping someone else in the house sees it and goes and buys the milk.

Notes in PNRs are only seen if someone goes into the pnrs and belive me staff aren’t doing it on the off chance.

“did you get milk dear? ‘no’ ‘wny not? I left a note on the fridge’ ‘didn’t see it’ ‘did you even look at the fridge’ ‘no’

If a mebber of airline staff says ‘yes I’ve linked the bookings’ then all they have done is put a note in the pnrs hoping you’ll get off the phone. Once created it’s simply not possible to merge bookings in any meaningful way that passengers might expect.

Even with BAs ‘to complete party’ benefit for golds is all done in the background. Seating for the ‘complete party’ is still done manually and then those seats can only be changed by BA. It appears the OP isn’t Gold otherwise BA would have seated them all together.

As to the OP we still don’t know the ages of his minor children. To most airlines anyone aged 12+ is an adult.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/family-travel/seating

… however we always ensure each child under 12 is seated with an adult from your booking. Anyone over 12 years old may be seated separately.

And in this case the kids weren’t on the same booking as the adults so that does not apply.

And this is in line with CAA regulations. And even then they state that ‘next to’ can mean – because of cabin size and layouts – across the aisle or in the row in front or behind.

[timajackson]

As everyone is so keen to know, the kids are 32 and 34 but will always be my babies.

[Lady London]

timajackson wrote:

As everyone is so keen to know, the kids are 32 and 34 but will always be my babies.

You cannot be serious.
With respect, you created a thread for *that*?

[ChrisC]

timajackson wrote:

As everyone is so keen to know, the kids are 32 and 34 but will always be my babies.

Really? We’ve been trying to help you because you said “minors” in your first post.

Do you think you’re being funny?

Thanks for wasting our time.

[Lady London]

cinereus wrote:

I’ve never understood the obsession with sitting near your children. If it’s so important because they cannot behave themselves without supervision, then it’s only right to pay for seat selection.

Ah. All is clear now.

[timajackson]

Yes, obviously a joke but while some of the responses to the thread have been factual and very helpful (eg the information about the decades old software the seating systems are built on), others have been frankly judgemental and obnoxious. My point was never that the entire family should sit together but we were allocated 4 separate seats in 2 booking refs with no one seating together which is not particularly clever in a pandemic regardless of the fact it was not what we wanted and not something we could pay to rectify even if we had wanted to.
Thank you to those of you who engaged constructively and to those of you who resorted to personal insults, well this is new forum and it is up to you if you want it to become toxic so early on. Perhaps inevitable but I think that would be a shame.
I have already stated that my kids are minors but as everyone was so keen to know, my youngest turned 13 last month.
Seasons greetings and happy new year

[ChrisC]

If only you had given the kids ages in the first place instead of playing stupid games.

it’s a simple enough question to answer and you could and should have answered it much earlier and if you had the those comments you consider judgemental likely wouldn’t have been made. You need to take responsibility for that.

As I already posted 13 is not regarded as being a minor by BA and their regulator the CAA. If they had been under 12 then BA would have moved other passengers to comply with the law. I didn’t ask their ages way back to be nosey but so you’d get accurate answers.

Whilst the forums are new this website isn’t and people have always had to rely on being given honest and accurate info to get honest and accurate answers.