BA seat charges (short haul)

Are you on a HBO (hand baggage only) ticket?

If so, there is no free seat selection for any BAEC member. The only (free) way around this seems to be to use a check in kiosk at the airport (I’m not sure if EDI or LGW have those.)

Edited to add:

It seems EDI has kiosks for BA

http://www.edinburghairport.com/prepare/departing-from-edinburgh/step1-check-in

Seems LGW does, too, according to this (but it is ba.com, so proceed with caution!) See the section entitled Bag Drop Desks:

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/airport-information/london-gatwick

Here’s all you need to know……

http://www.businesstraveller.com/discussion/topic/Another-lovely-enhancement-from-BA?page=22#last_post

95% of flights on *A thought I would select BA for a direct flight LHR to HAJ in Club. Major disappointment even before booking, charge for seat selection. Then a terminal switch T3 to T5 without any communication, just happened to find out by chance when checking Avios number in the booking, being 8 days before travel when the airline had announced it 3 weeks earlier. Emailed customer services about compensation for parking fees already paid and got an appallingly typed email back saying they are unable to help on a historical booking when the booking is in a week’s time. I occasionally despair of *A customer service responses where English is not the first language but this is dire. Will be my only dalliance away from *A

AOTG: 2 weeks back ARN-LHR on a one way HBO fare & tried on-line check in.

Offer to change seat came up so looked and chose, only to discover a charge of £ 22 was asked. As this was almost half the fare paid, tried to go back to the original seat only to discover this was not possible.

Aborted my check-in until the airport, boarded last & moved to an excellent seat on the relatively empty flight without problem

Tim2sms – Main reason is that BA relies on its domestic LHR services to feed its international network.

Therefore many of its passengers on this route will be making connections and they will get priority. Fares will be higher at times when more passengers are connecting, for example an 08:00hrs service ex-LHR connects perfectly with a wave of long-haul arrivals from N America, Mid East, Asia etc..

Easyjet is, for the time being, purely a point-to-point carrier so all its seating allocated for pure London-EDI passengers.

What I cannot understand are BA’s the seat charges even in Club, I booked for my wife and myself in Club to Orlando, paid almost £6k for the fare then told they wanted another £70 each/ each way, its a joke.
I regularly fly Emirates into Africa at 30% less that BA in Club and a much better service, well worth the extra few hours. Picked up dropped off at home, if the layover is more than 6 hours they put you up in an hotel an no seat charges!
BA need to look at what is being offered by other airlines and wake up and smell the roses.

The thing that puzzles me about BA and all the extra charges, is why so many people still choose to travel with them, when there is such a range of competitive options available. Is there a large percentage of corporate account customers who are tied to BA? Why are more people not voting with their feet and getting better value for money elsewhere?

I chose not to use BA some years ago mainly because of the hassle of travelling from the Midlands to/from LHR, in recent years I have only used BA for Avios RFS flights, but now that Iberia has started operating out of BHX I will probably burn my Avios with them instead of BA, by all accounts IB have improved.