Seat selection in Club Europe

[watesc]

Hi there, just booked club europre to faro in September and tried to select seats but it’s saying I need to pay?
I booked this last year to faro and this year to Sorrento both in club Europe and both times I could select my seats for free months in advance. I’m a blue member on exec club, but I’ve never been higher. Anyone know if something has changed?

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

It may be that the tickets you bought last year were in the highest CE fare bucket which does include free seat selection and this ticket is in a lower one.

[watesc]

Seems crazy that you can book “buisness” and not be able to select your seats! Thankyou

[JonathanC]

watesc wrote:

Seems crazy that you can book “buisness” and not be able to select your seats! Thankyou

This is how BA have pretty much always been, Rob has said before about seat selection fees on a CW flight and how a couple could easily spend around £500 (!!) deciding where they’d like enjoy their flight.

BA is one of the few airlines around that charges a premium to those who’ve booked a cheap Business Class ticket and don’t have status

[Alex G]

JonathanC wrote:

watesc wrote:

Seems crazy that you can book “buisness” and not be able to select your seats! Thankyou

…

BA is one of the few airlines around that charges a premium to those who’ve booked a cheap Business Class ticket and don’t have status

Another is Finnair, who won’t even let you select a seat at on line check in unless you pay extra!

[SamG]

Quite a few airlines are joining the club these days on the lower fares at least – Qatar, KLM, Air France off the top of my head. It is a pain though – I’ve just forked out on some Club Europe flights where we ended up on seperate bookings due to using vouchers, I find on leisure flights people do seem to pay so if you wait getting 4 together can be tricky

[NorthernLass]

I am doing a few BA Hols flights this summer for the double TPs and OH is joining me on 3 of them, on separate bookings. As he is Blue these days, I can’t select a free seat for him, but I’m not minded to give BA any more cash to sit next to him – am I a terrible wife? 😂.

*Actually I’ve just remembered it’s worse than that, on 2 of the trips I have put him in economy. In my defence it’s only 2 hours each way! And I am whisking him off to MEX in F later in the year.

[Lyn]

Anna, presumably you’ve already thought of swapping seats with your OH on one of those 2 mixed cabin trips? Or perhaps both if you are taking extra trips in EC on your own?

[NorthernLass]

Yes, I will definitely be offering to swap. Most of them are really short flights for 80 TPs so neither of us will be missing much. He’s in CE for ATH, which is the longest one, anyway, thanks to last year’s Barclay’s voucher!

[Lynx]

NorthernLass wrote:

Yes, I will definitely be offering to swap. Most of them are really short flights for 80 TPs so neither of us will be missing much. He’s in CE for ATH, which is the longest one, anyway, thanks to last year’s Barclay’s voucher!

You could always try asking the person next to you in CE if they will swap seats with OH. You never know, they might be willing to swap 2C for 27B! 😀

[NorthernLass]

Lol, I would never do that, it’s just about the worst plane etiquette 😂. I saw witnessed something similar on our DOH-MAN in December which I posted about in one of the chat threads.

I’m more likely to offer my CE seat to the person sitting next to my OH, though I’ve no idea if cabin crew get funny about swaps with complete strangers!

[AJA]

NorthernLass wrote:

I am doing a few BA Hols flights this summer for the double TPs and OH is joining me on 3 of them, on separate bookings. .

I’m curious, why didn’t you book him on the BAH bookings as well? That way he would’ve benefitted from the double tier points too. Did you use Avios for him?

[NorthernLass]

A mix of both cash and avios bookings. There’s no point us both spending the required amount to get status, we very rarely travel separately. Previously he had the higher status but I have more free time to travel these days so it makes sense for me to do the TP trips this year.