Paid for seats on 2-4-1 flight, reallocated by BA – is it status?
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Forums › Frequent flyer programs › The British Airways Club › Paid for seats on 2-4-1 flight, reallocated by BA – is it status?
I paid £222 months ago to secure the seats in club we wanted. Come to check in 24 hrs before and one of them has been moved miles down the cabin. No notification received.
I think I’ve read here if someone with a higher status want my seat they can bump me. Is that right? Seems unfair and what’s the point of paying for a seat if having paid for it you can lose it anyway.
This can happen for various reasons, including someone with status or travelling with a baby. A seat is never guaranteed but you should get your money back for the one which was moved, though I don’t know if this is automatic or you have to put a claim in. If you can’t find 2 seats together at the moment, get to the airport early and explain the situation to the check in agent, they might be able to find you something better.
No, there isn’t really a point and I very rarely paid for seats before I got to Silver!
Thanks for the reply and we’ll see how we get on at the airport. I doubt any refund is automatic and I think you’re right with not bothering to pay for them. I don’t think I’ll get to silver as all my travelling is courtesy of Avios 😄
You have to phone BA to get a refund on your seat reservation fee. It’s not an automatic refund but you should definitely ask for the refund as it makes a mockery of the idea of paying to reserve in the first place. Easiest done by phoning BAEC.
There WAS an online claim form for this which worked very well for me in 2020.
Status doesn’t bump people out of seats. It’s much more likely the aircraft changed, or the seat was defective. Defective seats can be occupied either by staff, or because they were fixed in time for departure, but you’d already been moved, and there’s no automatic process to move people back.
It depends on the seat, plenty of online posts about BA moving high status pax to their preferred seats. Of course it could also be any of the other reasons! But it should trigger an automatic refund, this is BA shamelessly hoping that people won’t get round to doing it!
If you’re pursuing a refund make sure you insist on getting the cost of *both* seats back. Not just the one that was moved. As you’d have been paying for both with the purpose of being together as well as the specific seats you chose.
Thanks for the responses. “Our” seats were occupied, so not defective or used by crew, and other pax were also inconvenienced, which an attendent suggested meant a change of plane causing the issue. Not sure how that woukd affect seats 1A & 1B but there we are. My wife had been reallocated to 10D, which wsn’t even in Club so goodness knows what would have happened there. I had managed to change that so luckily didn’t have to find out! Anyway, we swapped seats with another couple so it worked out ok, but that’s not the point.
I’ve raised a refund request via the phone and at the BA rep’s suggestion have also done it via the website, the form is easy to complete but 250 character free text limitation isn’t really enough!
Will update in due course.
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