Advice please

[heslopali]

We have booked a fly cruise to Barbados in November. I have paid £800 to upgrade to premium seats for the two of us, P&O are asking for a further £140 to sit together, I have emailed them twice and tried to call them several times after waiting over 3 hours given up with the phone calls. I am not happy about the extra £140 but it has been impossible to contact someone to discuss this with them, we are both nervous flyers and when booking the premium seats we were told choosing your seat was part of the deal. The website keeps breaking down so I’m at a loss as what to do next, We have cruised with P&O many times but I’ve never had any problems like this before with customer services., or lack of.Can anyone out there help or advise.I have even thought about contacting the consumer programme Rip Off Britain.

[ann141]

23 minutes ago, heslopali said:

We have booked a fly cruise to Barbados in November. I have paid £800 to upgrade to premium seats for the two of us, P&O are asking for a further £140 to sit together, I have emailed them twice and tried to call them several times after waiting over 3 hours given up with the phone calls. I am not happy about the extra £140 but it has been impossible to contact someone to discuss this with them, we are both nervous flyers and when booking the premium seats we were told choosing your seat was part of the deal. The website keeps breaking down so I’m at a loss as what to do next, We have cruised with P&O many times but I’ve never had any problems like this before with customer services., or lack of.Can anyone out there help or advise.I have even thought about contacting the consumer programme Rip Off Britain.

If you use social media, try sending a personal message.I am a nervous flyer and on our last Caribbean cruise we did have to pay extra to choose our seats in addition to the extra cost of choosing to fly Premium.Things may have changed but we felt that if it meant I wouldn't be as anxious about the flight both before and during, it was a price worth paying.

[Shipsareus]

Agree that you should be able to sit together having paid for premium seats. However , we have double checked this with our TA who confirmed that we had to cough up the extra £140 to ensure we sit together.

it looks like the formation is 2-3-2 and so there will inevitably be some splitting up of couples travelling together .

infuriating !

[pete14]

43 minutes ago, Shipsareus said:

Agree that you should be able to sit together having paid for premium seats. However , we have double checked this with our TA who confirmed that we had to cough up the extra £140 to ensure we sit together.

it looks like the formation is 2-3-2 and so there will inevitably be some splitting up of couples travelling together .

infuriating !

As you booked with an agent, it really should be your agent handling this for you. You may be lucky that P&O will handle it for you but had you booked direct, they certainly would handle it for you. I did understand that if you upgrade seats on a flight it included choice of seats but never having done it, I may be wrong.

[wowzz]

3 hours ago, pete14 said:

As you booked with an agent, it really should be your agent handling this for you. You may be lucky that P&O will handle it for you but had you booked direct, they certainly would handle it for you. I did understand that if you upgrade seats on a flight it included choice of seats but never having done it, I may be wrong.

The thing is that if you book PE with TUI on one of their package holidays,  seat selection is free. But, when P&O charter the aircraft, P&O sneakily add on the seat selection fee. 

Personally I'd prefer it if they just added on the seat selection fee to the PE cost, rather than hide it away.

[brian1]

Surprised they do this with the covid protocol,sitting strangers together to make a quick buck.Ryanair were the same recently with our 2 flights,we paid the basic fare and were separated.Everyone just played musical chairs once the doors were shut,lol.

[picsa]

12 hours ago, Shipsareus said:

Agree that you should be able to sit together having paid for premium seats. However , we have double checked this with our TA who confirmed that we had to cough up the extra £140 to ensure we sit together.

it looks like the formation is 2-3-2 and so there will inevitably be some splitting up of couples travelling together .

infuriating !

Infuriating that P&O charters a 2-3-2 formation aircraft?

 

As ‘sitting together’ is seen as a benefit then it would seem unreasonable that if two couples paid the same price that one couple should get a benefit the other doesn’t. 
 

Thus charging for that ‘sitting together’ benefit separately to the premium seat benefit is entirely logical. 
 

Unless you prefer P&O to fly their 2-3-2 seat configuration with 1/7th of the seats empty and increase prices accordingly. 

[wowzz]

17 hours ago, Shipsareus said:

it looks like the formation is 2-3-2 and so there will inevitably be some splitting up of couples travelling together .

infuriating !

That is standard PE seating in virtually every 787 in the world. What do you expect P&O to do - have aircraft built specially for them ?

[brian1]

Years ago when we declined paying for seats we were randomly allocated seats but always together.Now they have set their algorythms to deliberately separate people even though there are seats still spare.Ryanair were one of the first to do this and others have followed suit.Just another money making trick IMO.Especially when the covid protocols are still supposedly in place.

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, brian1 said:

Years ago when we declined paying for seats we were randomly allocated seats but always together.Now they have set their algorythms to deliberately separate people even though there are seats still spare.Ryanair were one of the first to do this and others have followed suit.Just another money making trick IMO.Especially when the covid protocols are still supposedly in place.

To be fair Brian, I'm not aware of any other airlines that deliberately split people up, in the same mercenary way that Ryanair do.

[chrisg1uk]

I do sympathise. However, I really don't think you will achieve anything by moaning at P&O other than to register you complaint.  As others have said the seating is 2-3-2 and since most travel as couples, it is inevitable that some will be split up.  After the demise  of Thomas Cook there really are not many charter airlines around where P&O can charter the whole plane.  I really cannot see them waiving teh fee just because someone doesn't want to pay it.    

[zap99]

27 minutes ago, chrisg1uk said:

I do sympathise. However, I really don't think you will achieve anything by moaning at P&O other than to register you complaint.  As others have said the seating is 2-3-2 and since most travel as couples, it is inevitable that some will be split up.  After the demise  of Thomas Cook there really are not many charter airlines around where P&O can charter the whole plane.  I really cannot see them waiving teh fee just because someone doesn't want to pay it.    

Some couples may see a benefit in being sat apart for 9 hours.🤣

 

[brian1]

37 minutes ago, wowzz said:

To be fair Brian, I'm not aware of any other airlines that deliberately split people up, in the same mercenary way that Ryanair do.

If they're making same statements that they can't guarantee people will be together I assume they are following the same policy.I may be wrong.Ryanair denied it was deliberate but it seemed to have changed almost overnight that couples were always separated.Cheers,Brian.

[wowzz]

8 minutes ago, brian1 said:

If they're making same statements that they can't guarantee people will be together I assume they are following the same policy.I may be wrong.Ryanair denied it was deliberate but it seemed to have changed almost overnight that couples were always separated.Cheers,Brian.

I think saying that they cannot gurantee people will be sat together is totally fair. There is no way that any airline can give a 100% gurantee that people will always be sat together.

In my limited experience, BA, Tui, Jet2 and easyjet will do what they can to sit people together. However,  the more people that pre-book their seats, the less flexibility the carriers have in keeping people together.  But that is totally different to deliberately separating family groups, which is the Ryanair policy.

[Baggy178]

Something similar here.

We have a return flight from Barbados included in our cruise price ( Oct 22nd re-positioning Britannia ) with a flight to Manchester on a TUI charter.

P&O is inviting us to book seats but they carry a £35 premium. Presumably if I don't pre-book they have to seat us somewhere for free ?

And do P&O charter the entire TUI plane or just a certain number of seats - if it's the entire plane we don't understand why pre-booking carries a premium.

Thanks in advance.

[wowzz]

Just now, Baggy178 said:

Something similar here.

We have a return flight from Barbados included in our cruise price ( Oct 22nd re-positioning Britannia ) with a flight to Manchester on a TUI charter.

P&O is inviting us to book seats but they carry a £35 premium. Presumably if I don't pre-book they have to seat us somewhere for free ?

And do P&O charter the entire TUI plane or just a certain number of seats - if it's the entire plane we don't understand why pre-booking carries a premium.

Thanks in advance.

They charter the entire aircraft.

Why do they charge for pre-booking ? Simple really, it generates profit for P&O. 

[chrisg1uk]

25 minutes ago, Baggy178 said:

Something similar here.

We have a return flight from Barbados included in our cruise price ( Oct 22nd re-positioning Britannia ) with a flight to Manchester on a TUI charter.

P&O is inviting us to book seats but they carry a £35 premium. Presumably if I don't pre-book they have to seat us somewhere for free ?

And do P&O charter the entire TUI plane or just a certain number of seats - if it's the entire plane we don't understand why pre-booking carries a premium.

Thanks in advance.

Very simple because they can and folk pay.  In premium the seating is 232, the rest of the plane is 333. So couples who don't pay stand the risk of not being sat next to their partner.  I am told not all the seats are bookable and many who don't book report they have always been ok.  It depends how important it is to you.  I think my wife sees it as her duty to sit next to me but we don't pre book so I guess he lives in hope of being elsewhere.