Not seated together on long haul Avios reward flight

[Blackbat]

I’m currently in Seattle with my wife, flying back Saturday night with BA in Club World. The tickets were booked with avios and a 2-4-1 voucher almost a year ago. When I went to check us in this evening our allocated seats are in completely different parts of the cabin, several rows apart. Any tips from anyone for getting us seated nearer to each ? I haven’t completed check in yet and wondered if they may be able to sort it out at the airport.

[Reney]

When you looked is the plane full or are there seats next to each other than you can pay for?

[Blackbat]

It’s full, as was our outbound flight to SFO a couple of weeks ago but we were together then. I’d have thought that they would allocate seats together at the time of booking.

[SamG]

If you’re on the 8pm flight then there are no spare seats. The airport won’t be able to move anyone

Once onboard if you keep an eye out you may be able to swap with someone if they’re travelling alone but to be honest the seats are pretty anti social and it’s a night flight so I wouldn’t be worrying too much personally

[Blackbat]

Fair comment. It’s the 8pm flight. It’s more the point that BA didn’t put us together that annoys me. Do I have to pay 180 quid, or whatever the seat booking fee is now, in order to sit together in future? It’s the sort of thing that Ryanair do. This flight was booked within 8 hours of it being available to book.

[Rob]

Obviously status members can pick seats, which is Club is a high % of the cabin. I would suspect that families get priority next. It is possible by this stage there are not two adjacent seats left.

Best thing to do is NOT to complete check-in which gives you flexibility to change your seat if something opens up. Likely to be a few people on fully flex tickets who change their plans late in the day.

This is also an overnight flight with, I presume, Club Suite which means you can’t easily talk to your neighbour anyway. Being separated from my wife would cause me zero inconvenience in such a scenario, given you’ll be awake for about 90 mins max.

[John]

Blackbat wrote:

Fair comment. It’s the 8pm flight. It’s more the point that BA didn’t put us together that annoys me. Do I have to pay 180 quid, or whatever the seat booking fee is now, in order to sit together in future? It’s the sort of thing that Ryanair do. This flight was booked within 8 hours of it being available to book.

Yes. If BA “put you together”, especially when you booked so early, they would have to restrict the seat choices they could sell (or give for free to status holders).

BA has chosen to give late bookers (so more likely to have paid a high fare), particularly those people with status, a wider choice of seats rather than having lots of seats taken up by early leisure flyer/avios bookers.

[Richie]

BTW today’s BA48 is a B789 CW, and BA52 8pm is a B781 CS.
B781s in CS are great for a night flight, I wouldn’t be too bothered about seating.

[SamG]

Agree with Rob. BA doesn’t seperate on purpose, but they have a list they work down and adults without status will be at the bottom and sometimes they just run out of options !

If you want to guarantee it you need to pay unfortunately, something that is spreading to other airlines up front now Inc Air France KLM etc

[SamG]

BTW as a corporate traveller it’s a policy I agree with. I did a last minute trip to Asia recently on a very expensive ticket and had to work hard to keep an eye out on seats so I didn’t end up in a “honeymoon” seat with a stranger whilst people that probably paid 20% of the fare my company did had good seats in the window.

BA policy rewards status holders, expensive tickets or otherwise brings in a bit of cash whilst keeping more seating open for late bookers. They’re also reasonable about seating families together and so I think it’s one thing they do right

[PeteM]

On a more “positive” note you should be grateful you haven’t been downgraded, as more and more often seems to happen with redemptions these days…

[Peter K]

PeteM wrote:

On a more “positive” note you should be grateful you haven’t been downgraded, as more and more often seems to happen with redemptions these days…

To be fair, I’ve not heard that for a long while. Being taken to MCOL at 1.6p per avios used seemed to make BA realise it was a poor option for them.

[PeteM]

Peter K wrote:

To be fair, I’ve not heard that for a long while. Being taken to MCOL at 1.6p per avios used seemed to make BA realise it was a poor option for them.

There’s been a few recently. E.g.: https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/ba-avios-downgrade-from-first-to-club-without-any-compensation/

[yonasl]

PeteM wrote:

Peter K wrote:

To be fair, I’ve not heard that for a long while. Being taken to MCOL at 1.6p per avios used seemed to make BA realise it was a poor option for them.

There’s been a few recently. E.g.: https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/ba-avios-downgrade-from-first-to-club-without-any-compensation/

That’s a change of equipment to a plane without first to be fair to BA.

I am more worried by the fact that a downgrade would be 75% of 100,000 avios quick is only £1,200 per person. (So cheap to downgrade and have somebody else pay £4,000 for the same ticket).

[PeteM]

The point is the same – redemptions are clearly the cheapest customers to downgrade, especially when people don’t know the rules and won’t persevere.

[Peter K]

PeteM wrote:

The point is the same – redemptions are clearly the cheapest customers to downgrade, especially when people don’t know the rules and won’t persevere.

Not quite the same with business down to premium however as discussed here. The cheap business cash tickets could well be the cheapest to downgrade.

[PeteM]

Peter K wrote:

cheap business cash tickets

Not sure those exist anymore 🙂

[JDB]

PeteM wrote:

On a more “positive” note you should be grateful you haven’t been downgraded, as more and more often seems to happen with redemptions these days…

I don’t think it relates strictly to redemptions, but if you are on a redemption booking with no status and haven’t paid for seat selection, then you are a prime candidate for downgrading by one or more classes. It costs BA no more to downgrade more than one class. It is also somewhat optimistic to suggest that one will receive the downgrade reimbursement on the basis of 1.6p/Avios – that’s rare and will get rarer.

[Blackbat]

Thanks for the advice everyone. We’re now in the BA Terraces Lounge at Seattle airport and I had a call over the intercom to go to the front desk. The woman there had spotted that my wife and I weren’t sitting together and had already identified a possible seat swap which she said she’d ask the other single passenger if he minded doing. He didn’t so all sorted. Good service, I think :-).

[Peter K]

JDB wrote:

I don’t think it relates strictly to redemptions, but if you are on a redemption booking with no status and haven’t paid for seat selection, then you are a prime candidate for downgrading by one or more classes. It costs BA no more to downgrade more than one class. It is also somewhat optimistic to suggest that one will receive the downgrade reimbursement on the basis of 1.6p/Avios – that’s rare and will get rarer.

On what basis then would you suggest that the 75% refund for long haul be worked out then for a redemption ticket?

(Of course, I used 1.6p per avios historically, I’d use the current price of purchasing from BA now).

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

It’s still 75% of the avios.

If BA reimburses you for the downgrade it will reimburse the appropriate amount of avios.

The cost per avios only comes into it if you have to claim via MCOL which only deals with cash amounts.

[PeteM]

Blackbat wrote:

Thanks for the advice everyone. We’re now in the BA Terraces Lounge at Seattle airport and I had a call over the intercom to go to the front desk. The woman there had spotted that my wife and I weren’t sitting together and had already identified a possible seat swap which she said she’d ask the other single passenger if he minded doing. He didn’t so all sorted. Good service, I think :-).

That’s actually really impressive service! Glad it’s all sorted.

[zapato1060]

SamG wrote:

BTW as a corporate traveller it’s a policy I agree with. I did a last minute trip to Asia recently on a very expensive ticket and had to work hard to keep an eye out on seats so I didn’t end up in a “honeymoon” seat with a stranger whilst people that probably paid 20% of the fare my company did had good seats in the window.

BA policy rewards status holders, expensive tickets or otherwise brings in a bit of cash whilst keeping more seating open for late bookers. They’re also reasonable about seating families together and so I think it’s one thing they do right

Agree but what I don’t get is why IB can have free seat selection on J but BA want to milk the cow at every level.

[Peter K]

zapato1060 wrote:

Agree but what I don’t get is why IB can have free seat selection on J but BA want to milk the cow at every level.

QF are the same. Seats on flights booked on EK metal are free to reserve when booked directly, but when booked via QF as a QF codeshare you have to pay to reserve them (at least in economy). It’s just a cash grab.

BA, and some customers, claim it’s to protect their best passengers and their seat choices, but it’s just a money generator in reality.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

zapato1060 wrote:

Agree but what I don’t get is why IB can have free seat selection on J but BA want to milk the cow at every level.

Because IB is still a separate company with its own policies even though, like BA, it’s owned by IAG.