[lesmclaren]

Sadly the old days are now gone with the “new enhanced” configuration and everyone gets the same leg room and 3:3. Therefore the days when the first row behind the curtain was configured the same A / C as business class are now gone and this becomes a non issue!
As a gold card holder I always reserve the exit row when making a booking as there is still a chance it might have more legroom!
The real issue to me is why when the plane scheduled in the original reservation changes BA [and others] do not reallocate the selected seats of GC holders. And if you think BA is bad in this respect then don’t ever fly with SAS!! I am a GC holder with them but they never ever seem to take any notice of my profile and if the equipment changes just dump me in a middle seat or at the back regardless of the row I have originally booked!!!

[LuganoPirate]

Fly Swiss or Lufthansa. I’m GC /Senator and always get allocated a window seat close to the front behind business. On many occasions when there’s been just one seat free, that seat has been next to me. I did fly BA once LCY – ZRH and the seat next to me was empty, but then the plane was less than half full so not surprising really!

[SwissExPat]

Ok, lots to get through on this reply.

First a comparison which may put’s the situation into perspective and gets at the core of the issue. It is all about the difference between [A] “Pre-Paying” for a service/product or paying for it “as you go”.

One rail PAX buys a season ticket for the month/year. Another rail PAX buys a single on the day. On a particular day during the validity of the season ticket, the trains fail to run. PAX B does not suffer a financial loss since as they get to the station, the fare they would have paid remains in their pocket. PAX A however is annoyed and nowadays (it was not always the case) gets a refund from the train company. One could make similar comparisons with any situation where there are customers who pre pay versus those who pay at the point of service delivery [Gym membership, mobile phones etc]
Hopefully, most agree that the person who pre-pays should get something back when the Service is not provided.

In the airline business, in the main we pay in advance of the service and the airlines have our money before they provide the service. The industry has generally “abused” this unusual situation and governments have needed to enact significant legislation to protect us travellers since we are not in a strong negotiating position once large corporation has our money and on occasion, does not provide the Service.
Getting back to the seat being offered for selection and then being withdrawn, the comparison above is valid because there are 2 possible “purchasers” of the seat selection service. Those not in the BAEC (Bronze and higher) can pay for the seat selection. The airline quotes a fee for this. Many airlines operate this service on a similar basis. So, if a PAX buys this service and the airline does not fulfil the service, they PAX gets their money back. Call this PAX B. Another PAX is a member of the BAEC (bronze and above) and paid a significant “membership fee” at the start of the year, has access to a number of additional services provided by the airline many of which are offered to other non-members on a “pay as you go” basis (such as lounge access, upgrades, “free” flights, seat selection etc). Call this PAX A.

So when the Service is not provided to PAX A, what happens?

Some of the replies above suggest that PAX A “was unlucky this time”….. “Caveat Emptor”…. “took a gamble”… “took the risk”…. Is the thinking here that when a service provider offers you a service, you are actually “taking a risk”. Wouldn’t that apply to buying a packet of crisps in a shop?

Peter19 suggests that for PAX A that “it would be unreasonable to expect reimbursement”

Alexupgrade17 has “sympathy for the airline”.

StepheninLondon believes that the service provider “had to move the Curtain” i.e. “had to not provide the service”

Also MartynSinclair believes that PAX A ‘got the seat reservation for “Free”’ although I doubt that the airline would have allowed the PAX to select the seat in advance if they hadn’t handed over a significant amount of money to them in the prior year.
Getting to various levels in a FF program such as BAEC is identical to taking out a membership of a Club/Group/Association etc. You pay in advance, you get a suite of benefits and the service provider goes about providing them. If they don’t then I believe it is reasonable to expect some ‘rebate’ on the prepayment.

In much of the above, I believe many comments are being made by forum member who have been “captured” into the airline’s way of how the airline would like the world to be (largely based on the fact that they have our money in advance of provision the service). The airlines very much want to have their cake and eat it and continue to bleat on about “terms and conditions”. As mentioned above, Governments have in recent years felt the need to curb their excesses with legislation to protect the travelling public which is a natural response to the abuses.

My story did have a happy ending. We boarded the plane and I had a brief chat with the Purser. We then went to our allocated seats 2 rows behind the curtain. They were occupied by PAX who were settled in and the plane was reasonably full. I returned to the Purser and she indicated that there were quite a number of “double bookings” on the flight and told us to sit in the last row of CE.
There is a God!

[esselle]

Crumbs.

The airline is not contracting with you to provide a specific seat. It is contracting with you to get you from A to B.

If you select a specific seat, the airline immediately and overtly informs you that this seat may need to be changed for operational reasons. If you paid a specific premium over and above your ticket price to choose a particular seat as it offered some advantage (eg extra leg room) and they were not able to provide it, you should be refunded.

If you did not pay that specific premium, you are in the same boat as anybody else. You might not get the seat you wanted, but you knew that when you made the booking……………

[SimonS1]

I must say SwissExpat I have no idea what you are going on about.

The comparison with the rail is completely irrelevant. As a season ticket holder you only get refunded on the train if you have pre-paid and the train is cancelled. Your flight wasn’t cancelled so the rest is academic.

You didn’t pay for the seat so you weren’t out of pocket. You didn’t pay a “membership fee” for the BAEC either. If you had paid for the seat then you would have been out of pocket so BA would have refunded your money and moved you. As it was you hadn’t paid anything so you were not out of pocket no refund was due.

Ultimately despite your delusions of grandeur you paid for an economy flight and that is what the airline were committed to provide. Frankly I find it laughable that in changing your seat you in some way thought this should compel them to upgrade you.

As for the bit about governments legislating to protect people against abuses I can’t see what this has to do with asking you to move from one economy seat to another. I could perhaps understand if you had paid a premium fare but as esselle points out you were in the same position as any other economy traveller.

BA gets a lot of stick on this forum, often justifiably, but in this case your sense of entitlement really is a bit much.

[canucklad]

Excellent riposte SwissExpat…

This is one of those rare topics on this forum where no one is wrong, and not everybody is totally right.

It comes down to each individual’s level of expectation and perception of what you’re buying.

And without getting down to specifics…Those people who cite contractual obligations are right, but that allows BA to offer a Ryanair service whilst marketing and actively promoting anything but a Ryanair service.
For those of us, some will call us naïve, who believe the marketing jibe, probably need to lower our expectations…..

I spent a fortune on Lynx, before I realised that it didn’t turn me into a Warren Beatty lothario!! Now it’s back to Asda’s own brand and my beer goggles.. : )

[SimonS1]

I think that’s a total exaggeration Canucklad. The BA proposition is nothing like Ryanair. All that happened was a traveller was asked to move from one seat to another for operational reasons. All other aspects of the service were as far as I can see as promoted.

Most regular travellers know that if you reserve the first row behind CE then you are taking a risk that the curtain will move. In this case the OP made a bad call giving up exit row seats to gamble on the 2-3 configuration and is trying to pin this on the airline.

I do agree that some people have a misguided perception of what they are buying. I know for example people who have bought PE before and then been disappointed. However you can’t blame the airline for that.

Sadly though you do also have people who have a misguided view of their own importance and believe that Gold membership (or similar) automatically means other people should automatically be shifted from their seats, asked stand out of the way when boarding etc. As a Gold member with another airline I cringe at the thought of behaving like that.

[GlobalFalconCitation]

Hi SwissExPat.

As I said in my before post I think that judging from your description the telephone line was sub par.

However, why on earth should a hard working airline, who do their best to accommodate the needs of their many gold card holders, have to refund you because they have to change your seat number, especially considering they made it very clear that the change is possible if not probable.

Bear in mind, in an ideal world they do not want to change your seat! The only reason they did it is to make more money to keep the price of your ticket low. I would have thought they completely resolved your issue by giving you a free upgrade. However, maybe I am extremely misguided and have all the facts wrong. After all you were the only one there!

[SwissExPat]

@ Simon1……. Point of Fact(s)

In this instance, the service was not provided, NOT for Operational reasons, but for COMMERCIAL reasons. The Airline sought to sell on at a higher price a seat that had already been “assigned” to a PAX.

If it were genuine “operational” reasons then I have no complaint as I do agree that service providers often need a little “leeway” in being able to get over small problems like an aircraft being swapped out or a seat that has only just become defective. The problem with airlines is that they try to use this “operational Reasons” get out of jail card for every situation.

Secondly, if you can find anywhere in my post where I suggested that other passengers should be affected so as to accommodate me, then please highlight same.

Finally, I did not invent or ask for the creation of a FF program such as BAEC or Miles and more etc. The service provider decided to offer these and most definitely for a good commercial reason. You seem to suggest that being a member of these (at whatever level) is something that I should be ashamed of and that expecting the benefits provided at whatever level should only be provided occasionally and when is suits the service provider. I don’t choose where people sit on a plane, the airline does and they have all the facilities and expertise in doing it. I will blame any service provider when they do not do what they advertise. They are the experts, not me.

[SwissExPat]

Hi GlobalFalcon

I am not sure about the link between making extra revenue and therefore keeping fares low. Maybe there is a link.

In this mix, I am actually a direct BA shareholder (Not a huge stake!) and thus, in theory, will ultimately benefit from the extra revenue

The on board upgrade on the day had nothing to do with the seat rellocation…. it seems the flight had quite a few over bookings and being last on the plane with the doors closing, the Purser decided to get us seated asap since our seats were occupied etc.

[BusinessBabble]

The whole point of CE is that the curtain can be quickly and easily moved to accommodate more or less CE passengers, it’s not exactly unexpected to be moved if you reserve a seat in the front row of ET.

[KarlMarx]

If the airline changes your seat, there is little to do other than suck it up, as they do not guarantee any seat.

[SimonS1]

@ SwissExPat

1. I would consider commercial reasons and operational reasons to be the same thing in this context. Clearly based on bookings made the airline felt there was an opportunity to generate extra CE sales and/or income through upgrades. You can’t seriously be suggesting they would turn down the opportunity to generate income simply so you could remain in your preferred seats. They are running a business, and part of running a business is to maximise your income.

2. Re other passengers being affected. In your post 23/7 at 14.50 you state “I would have had no problem simply being shunted back a few rows as long as I was still immediately behind the “newly relocated” curtain in the 2 seat config.” Did it not occur to you there may already be people seated in that row? What did you think would happen to the existing occupants if your sense of entitlement was to be satisfied?

3. I am not saying you should be ashamed of being a member of BAEC, just that it doesn’t give you automatic rights of priority over other travellers in every respect of travel.

4. When you say “I don’t choose where people sit on a plane, the airline does” I don’t know what you are going on about as the whole basis of your rant seems to be you DID chose your seat and then didn’t get the one you had chosen.

5. When you say “I will blame any service provider when they do not do what they advertise. They are the experts, not me” this also appears bizarre to me, it is clearly stated when you reserve seats that they may be changed by the airline, no airline will guarantee 100% that you will definitely get those seats and the fluctuating nature of demand means no airline will get it right 100% of the time either

I am surprised that as an experienced traveller you were apparently unaware that the curtain gets moved from time to time and you were clearly gambling on giving up the exit row seats. This backfired on you, so take it on the chin and move on.

Finally I am also surprised that having eventually been upgraded you are still pretending to be some form of victim. Whether or not it was linked, it seems like pretty good service recovery to me and I suspect 99% of travellers would have been satisfied with the outcome.

[GlobalFalconCitation]

Hi SwissExPat,

I completely understand whee you are coming from. However, operational and commercial reasons are probably synonymous in the eyes of BA. They make the operation as efficient as possible and that is the direct link to how efficient their commercial gain/loss is. Their operation is the commerce, ferrying you from A to B.

So all in all your seat was changed for the right reasons, to save money for passengers and in your unique case to maybe even make you some! As a direct result of this you got an upgrade, no matter what the spark reason for doing so was (there has to be fuel for a fire!).

Hopefully the fact that BA try to make you money as a shareholder and also save you some on your ticket should make you happy. The fact that you got a free upgrade is a bonus. Personally I would just be very happy about the thing and move on.

[rferguson]

Like canucklad has said I think this is one of those situations where there is no right or wrong.

I think the analogy to the pre purchase/purchase on the day of a rail ticket is stretching the similarities to an extreme. At the end of the day, no payment is involved for any of the perks of the Executive Club. Yes, the perks are to be expected. BUT it is a loyalty program. It isn’t available for purchase. Other people can spend in excess of what some Gold card holders spend p.a and not reach that tier. So you can’t really call BA Gold something ‘purchased’. The loyalty tier comes with certain perks. Perks that fairly or not, BA are able to change/alter/withdraw at any time. Here the difference between purchasing something in advance versus on the day is really shown. If you purchase a BA seat allocation six months in advance and BA then say they are doing away with seat allocations you would receive a refund at the least. If you used your BA Gold status, you would be entitled to no ‘refund’. You didn’t buy anything. You used a perk. Not that this scenario would happen (if it did i’m sure BA would leave those with seat allocations where they were) it is just my concept of the difference.

Likewise other situations. Gold entitles you to priority boarding. If on the day the ground staff of a particular flight just make a ‘general’ boarding call is some recompense or refund entitled to the Gold card holder?

I think at the end of the day BA upheld their obligation – a Gold card holder was able to choose their seat at the time of booking. I would say that an aircraft configuration change DOES warrant an ‘operational reason’ seat change. Most that have flown BA often enough to achieve Gold will likely be aware of the ‘flexible’ configuration of BA shorthaul club.

Yes, as in most cases the situation could have been handled better. For example if there was a non-status passenger that had snapped up the front row or emergency exit rows perhaps reallocate one of their seats. Although this could raise problems of it’s own.

[Author]

Posts