OK then enough knee jeck reactions.
As far as I can see this is an extra.
If you are a gold or silver you have always been able to reserve your seat at the time of booking, one of the perks.
Normal people could only reserve 24 hours in advance when checking in on line.
So no change there then.
Mrs J still flys BA back and forth across the pond despite AA being the prefered choice by the company she works for.
She has flown with other airlines but believes that BA still have the best CC but they seem to have lots of delays on the Boston route (not unusual to be well over an hour late!!).