Thanks for the replies to my post. I agree that £16 is not much in the overall budget of a holiday however I still believe that it is a bit much for a service that by simply following the good practice of turning up in good time and speaking politely to the staff I would get anyway.
I was mostly annoyed at the way the service was pressured onto my wife by our travel agent who stated that if we didn’t pay we could “find ourselves sat separately anywhere around the aircraft”. Despite my protestations Mrs 814 decided that we needed the reassurance of this service so we paid up.
On a related item I am aware that many charter passengers frequently turn up late for check-in. If they have pre booked seats then I would expect that this will become even more of a problem in the future.
Finally I had an excellent holiday thank you. The diving in Sharm El Sheikh was as good as any I’ve seen and Mrs 814 and the kids enjoyed the hotel and resort too.