Help with seats on British Airways

[cozzello]

I booked my air through Celebrity for next June on the Millennium and my travel agent was securing my seat assignments. Ah the peace of knowing everything is taken care of... The travel agent telephones me two days later to inform me that I cannot reserve my seats on British AIrways anymore than 24 hours in advance. Has anyone else experienced this? I am uncomfortable especially since we will be at sea the day that I can book our seats for our flight home to the US. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions for me? Thanks.

Cheryl

[Globaliser]

The travel agent telephones me two days later to inform me that I cannot reserve my seats on British AIrways anymore than 24 hours in advance.

This is at least partly untrue. The following information relates to economy class:-

 

Seat pre-allocations are available for most BA longhaul flights at the time of booking. However, there is a limit to the percentage of the cabin that is available for pre-allocation - it's something like 60%. When that limit is reached, then no more pre-allocations are available except to top tier frequent flyer scheme members.

 

If you have the BA record locator (a six-character alphanumeric code that will probably start with X, Y, Z, 2 or - reportedly - 3), you should be able to go to the Manage My Booking function at http://www.ba.com to select your seats yourself. If the seat allocation limit has been reached, the website will tell you.

 

If you have pre-allocated seats on a long-haul flight, it is very unusual for them to be changed by BA. That normally only happens when there is a change in the aircraft configuration scheduled to operate the route.

 

For most BA shorthaul flights, seat pre-allocation is not available until check-in opens.

 

Online check-in for all flights usually opens at 24 hours before departure (23 hours before departure for flights departing from a US airport). If you have two flights which are on the same ticket and marked as a connection, you can often check in online for the second flight from the same time as for the first flight.

 

When you check-in online, you may have the option of choosing seats from a seat map (or, if you have pre-allocated seats, other seats). But for many flights, especially busy ones, seat allocations are done automatically by the check-in computer, and you may therefore have no option but the seats that are allocated to you. When this is done, it is to try to prioritise the higher tier frequent flyers to make sure that they get their preferred seats first, and then to minimise the number of groups who are split up.

[dog]

Yes, from London to Copenhagen on BA ( the second segment of our flight) we cannot reserve our seats either.

We have WT Plus seats assigned from Toronto to London, at time of booking but the second segment ( we were told would be assigned at the airport check in). J.

[Iwantsun]

I am uncomfortable especially since we will be at sea the day that I can book our seats for our flight home to the US. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions for me? Thanks.

Cheryl

 

Cheryl

If Celebrity is like RCCL then they have PCs with internet access hooked up to printers. We were in the same situation during our September cruise (last day was a sea day) and we printed our BA boarding passes before going to dinner using the same process Globaliser mentioned. It cost us a few $ to use the internet but we had less stress going thru LHR.

[BobbiOh]

Yes, from London to Copenhagen on BA ( the second segment of our flight) we cannot reserve our seats either. J.

 

Most airlines do not allow seats to be assigned on inter-Europe flights for US originating passengers.

[Globaliser]

Most airlines do not allow seats to be assigned on inter-Europe flights for US originating passengers.

Though this has nothing to do with US-originating. Most European airlines simply do not pre-allocate seats in shorthaul economy class at all for anyone (except sometimes to top tier frequent flyers).

[DonLou]

I had a BA flight from Rome to New York with a change of planes in London. I could book the London to New York seats immediately but the seats for the Rome to London leg could not be booked until 24 hours before the flight.