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I am presently BAEC Blue and upon checking in for my RFS flight to GIB tomorrow, I was surprised to see that emergency exit row seats retained their £43 price tag while other seats were free. I was under the impression that all seats, unless otherwise booked or blocked by the airline, were released for free 24 hours before the flight? Despite being a low 50 sequence number at check in, the vast majority of seats were unavailable to me. I checked in literally the second that OLCI opened. I cannot imagine that the majority of the plane has decided to invest in a booked seat at considerable expense, or there are so many Silver and Gold card holders on the plane that have done the same for free at the point of booking.
Has BA changed their policy about booking an emergency exit row seat without status? Any idea why there were so few seats to choose from and 24 hours minus 1 minute before the flight?
- This topic was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
Do Silvers still get emergency exit rows for free? Or is that just Gold now?
BA likely saving the exit row for Silvers and Golds to select (for free) when they do OLCI but happy to extrract cash from anyone with no status willing to cough up for them.
Theoretical Seating will also come into this and BA trying to keep a seat free next to status passengers which limits choice to everyone else.
If you didn’t generate your BP you could go back later to see what other seats have opened up.
Do Silvers still get emergency exit rows for free? Or is that just Gold now?
They do on short haul
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that BA actively tries to keep the seat free next to those with status. Makes sense and a benefit of Silver I was not aware of. I will be Silver from July and look forward to enjoying this advantage. Come to think of it, there was a free seat beside me quite a lot of the time when I was Silver some years ago, I thought I was just lucky or electing to fly on less busy services.
There was only one window seat available during OLCI and because I didn’t want anyone else grabbing that, I promptly took it in the first row behind CE, hence I’ve checked in and BP has been generated. There’s a fair chance the middle seat is not actually occupied, rather it’s greyed out as someone with status has booked the aisle. We shall see. Might be hoping for too much after recent BA conduct, such as 3×3 in CE.
The flight out was full to the rafters, the middle seat was indeed occupied.
On the return leg I flew with a HBO ticket and the seating algo vindictively booked me into a middle seat in row 30 on an A320 CEO, the final row. Fortunately the row opposite was empty allowing me to stretch out but beware that this row is a veritable torture chamber. There is no window, seat pitch is reduced to 28 inches and feels VERY tight in reality, while head and shoulder room is also heavily reduced due to the tapering fuselage. Naturally, the seat does not recline due to the bulkhead behind. Had all three seats been occupied, anything over a one hour flight would have driven me to the edge of reason. I cannot believe that BA is serious about selling such below par seats. Flying on ANY low cost airline is a luxurious experience compared to Row 30 on their A320s. It might be very slightly better on a NEO with the slimline Recaro seating aft of the over wing exits offering a fraction more legroom in reality, but with the otherwise smart looking Pinnacle seating throughout the cabin, legroom is notable by its total absence. Adding to the discomfort was a cock up on arrival at Terminal 3 where there was nobody to greet our aircraft and we waited 25 minutes for someone to come and operate the jetty.
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