Pay to reserve seat on BA short-haul?

[kevinchoi]

I haven’t taken a BA short-haul flight in years after I’ve moved up north, but am planning to take one soon from Heathrow

So if there’s two of us travelling and we really want to be seated together, how important is it to pay for seats in advance? (For both Club Europe and Euro Traveller) Will it automatically assign us two seats together?

Budget airlines are notorious for giving you two seats far away from each other which is why i’m asking this, but is it the same for BA?

[dougzz99]

BA don’t set out to separate you, but if others with status or who do pay leave only single seats you may not be able to be seated together. In CE it’s more likely you’d be separated simply because the smaller cabin reduces the opportunity of a pair. It’s very much a personal choice to pay, and if being separated would upset you I’d pay.

I’d personally never pay, all the seats are equally bad, exit rows aside, even row 1 reserved for status passengers is really quite poor. In ET if you’re together one of you has a middle seat, which sucks, or you sit in aisle seats with the aisle between you. None of these options justifies spend to me.

[ianwardz]

I personally would never pay to reserve seats. If nobody paid for them then BA might stop trying to charge for it!
As far as I know BA would not deliberately place you apart unlike some other airlines. We have never been placed apart with BA, but, on short-haul, it wouldn’t bother us anyway.

[Roberto]

If you “really want” to sit together then just pay and have done with it. Life too short to worry about paying for stuff like that.

Have a great trip.

[Michael C]

Did anyone see the update on the reader whose 8-yr-old was initially given a seat not next to either parent?!
IST-LHR, I believe.