[Airpocket]

For those frequent flyers who aren’t affected by this new charge, good for you! Enjoy the freebie while it lasts. I doubt it will,though. After all, BA sees you as a cash cow and will eventually figure that if you are well off enough to be able to afford WTP,Business, and First and/or fly often enough to reach Silver or Gold status then you surely will be able to spare a few pounds to reserve your seat.

[asteriosozounis]

I’ve booked club ticket from ATH-LHR at the end of November and I could not book my seat. I have also booked club I class ticket LHR-MAD-LHR for July and again I could not book my seat. Now I know why. No thanks I’ll wait until 24 hours before departure. ;o)

[Binman62]

TEMBO one. It is certainly preferable to the insidious fuel surcharges so prevalent nowadays……………I would agree but the BA charge of £60 per seat per sector is on top of their insidious fuel surcharge, it is not replacing it. It takes the taxes fees and charges for a WT+ or Club World Return Transatlantic to around £400 per pax. This on top of an eye watering £4307 fare in Club to Toronto. Yes it is optional, but if you have shelled out almost £9000 for two people, it is not unreasonable to think you might actually sit together for the 6 hours without having to pay for a further £120 each way to so do.

As for the policy you will find full details of the if you follow this link.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/paid-seating/public/en_gb

It shows that Gold/Silver and First and anyone on a full fare in any cabin is not affected. Neither are passengers with infants and those with additional needs. 3 days out BA will pre seat families with kids (2-11 years) so they will not have to pay to sit together and neither will groups. In short very few passengers will have to pay which makes you wonder why BA has again shot themselves in the foot. The publicity is terrible, resulting in forums like this across the internet being 100% against the move. What BA needs more than anything is some decent public relations staff as well as a trained counsellor to take the gun out of their hands?

[JonathanCohen09]

On the radio this morning they reported the new charge by BA for seat selection. The main reason given for it was that people travelling together would be guaranteed sitting together or individuals would be able to have a window or aisle seat. I can accept it for economy and maybe even WTP but as a previous contributor said,why should you pay an extra £120 return on top of a £3600 CW ticket to Australia.

Another thought occurred to me. Can anyone tell me If you are booked for example to travel on BA in CW from Tel Aviv to New York do BA expect you to pay £60 for each of the 4 sectors you will fly to get to NY and back home? That means a whopping £240 return just for the privilege of choosing the seat that you prefer to sit in or possibly £480 if you are travelling with a colleague or partner?

I am somewhat surprised that there is still no comment from VK on this topic!!!

[Airpocket]

Isn’t it interesting – some would say perverse – that while some carriers (such as EK and GF) increase their baggage allowances across all classes and introduce competitively-priced Business Class tickets, other carriers – such as BA and SQ – alienate passengers with silly charges (BA) and diminishing products on “regional” (SQ to Oz) routes.
To quote Hamlet (well, the ghost actually), “Oh what a falling off was there”. :o)

[rthonwjb]

This time BA have gone too far. Next time my wife and I fly to NYC from LHR we will fly Upper Class and not CW. This is no longer the British Airways I have enjoyed flying with for over 30 years.

[ANDREWYOUNG1]

I think readers should consider that actually this is a good thing as it does offer choice for passengers who didn’t previously qualify for advance seat selection. Remember that previously, unless you had booked a full fare ticket or were silver/gold/prem EC member you had to wait until check-in (be that on-line 24hrs beforehand or at the airport) to select a seat. We should put aside that other carries such as VS have let passengers even booking the most discounted Y class seat and without any status to select seats at the time of booking; it has always been the case that BA have not let you do this, so this is not new news and therefore not really worth discussing here. But what BA are letting you do now is make a choice, if you want to pay a bit extra you can pre-select your seat, if you don’t then just wait until check-in so you’re no worse off than before but at least you have the choice now whereas previously if you didn’t have the status or didn’t buy the most expensive ticket you just had to wait. It’s basically BA just offering a new service for which they are obviously going to want to charge for, it would be like if they started say selling magazines in Traveller cabins to bored passengers, it’s an extra service, you can buy one if you want or not if you don’t – would there be the same outcry at that?

[BRUSHES]

SEVERAL U.S. AIRLINES CHARGE FOR ‘CERTAIN’ SEATS INCLUDING JET BLUE AND NW (NOW DELTA). I THINK USAIR DOES, TOO. AND UA HAS ‘ECONOMY PLUS’ THAT ANYONE CAN BUY AN UPGRADE TO, REDUCING THE PERKS EARNED BY ROAD WARRIORS.

[YorkshireTraveller]

Absolute farce. The extra revenue this will earn will be half that of the revenue lost from passengers choosing other airlines. The main rival, Virgin, have allowed you choose your own seat at time of booking for no charge for years now and £120 to choose a seat in CW for a return?! Are you mental? like £4,000 isnt enough to pay. So stupid.

RIP BA – coming soon to a bankruptcy court near you

[ScottWilson]

All very well for World Traveller and Eurotraveller customers, they are marginal cost. It is perfectly reasonable to get more revenue from customers that generate barely any net revenue at all.

However, when I go Club World or Club Europe it is outrageous. Paying significant amounts of money should entitle a passenger in F, C or even WTP (full fare at least) to seat selection.

[BRUSHES]

IN THE U.S., ‘PAY;’ TELEVISION WAS SOMETHING THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN…. HOWEVER, A FEW PEOPLE SIGNED UP TO PAY FOR EXTRA STATIONS AND AS MORE AND MORE PEOPLE SIGNED UP, PAY TV BECAME THE STANDARD. SAME WITH AIRLINES… NO ONE IS GOING TO PAY SEATING FEWS EXCEPT FOR A ‘FEW’, THEN MANY, THEN ALL.
MY POINT IS THAT IF N O O N E PAYS BA WILL NOT CHARGE FOR SEAT ASSIGNMENTS… IF THE BALL STARTS ROLLING, THEN WE ONLY HAVE OURSELVES TO BLAME FOR SEATING ASSIGNMENTS.

[FrequentTraveller]

Several years ago, BA made no charge for seat allocation at time of booking. Although this was only available on long haul routes. Then they took that option away from all passengers except their most frequent flyers, passengers travelling with infants and some other cases. This was to done to encourage (or force) people into using on-line check in.

When the rules last changed significantly Silver Executive Club card holders and above also gained the ability to pre-assign on short haul routes.

So if you only had no Executive Club card status, even if you were travelling on a fully flexible fare, there was no option at all to assign seats at time of booking. With these changes that option is being made available to everybody, although at an extra fee. You don’t have to pay for it if you don’t want to. You can wait for on-line check-in to open 24 hours prior to departure and choose your seat just like you HAVE TO now.

For long haul passengers this is a previously available service, for many short haul rules this is something which was not available even a few years ago.

Although the free pre-assignment rules have been extended to those on fully flexible fares. So if you are paying top price for ticket in any class, you can now get free seat allocation at time of booking whereas previously you did not. Similar with people who had high tier status with another one world carrier.

I am a Silver card holder and have been using seat allocation at time of booking. There have been occasions when my seat has been changed between the time of booking and boarding the aircraft. There is small print, to say BA reserve the right to change the seats for “operational reasons”.

What concerned me when I first heard of the new rules, is what would happen to somebody who had paid for pre-assignment and then found BA had changed the seat, would the extra fee be refunded? I was actually surprised to see BA have thought that one through. There is a refund policy which will apply in some but not all cases. So I am glad to see that BA have a refund policy in place from the start. Although it would have been better if the refund was automatic instead of the passenger having to apply within 14 days.

While this is a backward step on their policy of a few years ago, it is an improvement on their current policy.

[UpandAway]

I’m Gold so this won’t affect me, but my partner is Blue and it will affect them.

The 3 return flights a year in Club World to Hong Kong I purchase for them will now go to Cathay or Qantas. I’m also a fan of BA but this is asking too much. As others have said, £60 on top of a £3600 fare is showing some nerve.

Sometimes I wonder what planet the folk at Waterside are on.

[NTarrant]

I can’t say that I agree with this policy for any Club World or Europe passengers. But it does give people in World Traveller/Plus the option to have what they want.

As a Silver Exec card holder it won’t effect me and I;m not interested in emergency exit row seats. Passengers booked with a gold or silver card do not pay anthing, it does say “and any passengers on the same booking”

[alwaysinclub]

Well I think it is such a shame. BA were getting it together, with a great update of Club World, Terminal 5 and a good network. Now its all gone very wrong. Flying out og Gatwick in Euro Traveller is like Easyjet, lounges are tired, WTP is rubbish compared to Virgin, Club World is expensive and now you may have to pay for a good seat. Let’s be clear, there are favourites!
I have stopped flying with BA longhaul in Business Class, I have opted for Lufthansa at very competitive prices and great on-time performance. At a time when price sensitivity is high, this is a dangerous move because I am sure this move will not compensate their high costs, for one, people flying Club World often have Silver or Gold and therefore get decent seats and this reckless move will force annoyed, once very loyal, customers to other airlines. I live in the middle east now and every month people in the UK visit. Nobody is planning to come with BA. Gulf Air is cheap and service good, Virgin Premium Economy is great and Emirates all classes are fantastic, even if they can be on the higher side cost wise. I think BA should think about trying to increase their load factor by incentivising the customer, not squeezing them further.

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