BA: Seat Change on Check-In - how?

[LondonPax]

I fly BA long-haul business class fairly regularly. I have a Silver exec club card. The main benefit of this for me - and the main reason I fly BA to get the tier points to keep it - is that I can pick my seat when I book. My travel plans are usually set months in advance so I book months in advance and pick the seat I want.

For a long-haul flight leaving tomorrow I picked my seat months ago. When I went into the booking a few weeks ago that seat was still shown. However, today, when I checked in online (mere minutes after check-in opened), I had a different seat. :\ Same thing happened to me on another BA flight a few weeks ago, where I got moved at the gate. OK, it's a first-world problem: I still have a seat in business class, but it's not a good as the seat I booked and it bugs me.

Obviously, someone has bumped me. Could a gold (or higher) card holder do that, i.e. request that specific seat the day before departure and get it?

[Basil]

Seems strange.
Suggest you write asking for an explanation. If the reply is unsatisfactory then write a personal letter to Keith Williams.

[Hotel Tango]

Can be due to aircraft change (same type but different config), and even double change (i.e. chg back to orginal type/config) by which time your original selection is lost.

[champair79]

Londonpax, please let me know your flight number today and I will try and work out why. Almost guaranteed to be an aircraft config change. Could also have been due to a seat defect (highly unlikely but you never know!).

[angelwings767]

I had the same thing happen to me last year. booked and paid for a specific seat on long haul flight. Aircraft type was changed after original booking but called BA and they rebooked me onto a seat in roughly the same area.

Checked in online for both sectors of my flight (with my original seat number given), arrived at the check in desk at MAN to be told seat on the long haul sector had been changed - due to aircraft change!.

Arrived LHR and double checked, told the aircraft was the same type but configured differently and that the seat i had booked did not exist on the aircraft. Very unhappy about it, but accepted the inevitable. Imagine when i got on the aircraft to find that the very seat I had booked DID exist and that someone else was sat in it - and I had paid for the priviledge of them sitting there.

I have to say the CC was fantastic though and moved the person from the seat - but still no answers from BA as to why they did it!

Needless to say will be avoiding them for my long haul flight next year.

[Tableview]

My sister was recently booked on a BA longhaul flight in WT+/Premium Economy. She tried to check in online and was told she couldn't as her seat had been changed. Didn't bother to check properly, asked me my advice but then wouldn't listen ...........

So she went to the airport and straight to Customer Services at T5, guns blazing let them have it with both barrels, and when she'd finished they told her she'd been upgraded to Business Class. :ugh:

[ExXB]

Similar thing happened to me when I was still burning miles. Selected seats in first row of Y, long-haul B747, emergency exit row. As I recall had selected sears A/B. when I checked few weeks later saw that we had been moved to E/K in same row. I.e three seats apart both middle seats.

Nobody could explain why and useless Executive Club office in Bremen couldn't do anything to fix it, or even change it. I finally complained to BA's manager in GVA who spent some days fixing the problem.

He never would tell me how/why this happened but my suspicion was that a disgruntled employee was intentionally screwing around high rated exec club members. Either that or their computer hates them as much as I do and doing same thing.

Beware BA.

[WHBM]

Go over to FlyerTalk and you will find extensive discussion about this happening on BA - to the extent of giving those who switch seat reservations around a name, the "Seat Shifters".

BA seat shifters - Page 10 - FlyerTalk Forums (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/468788-ba-seat-shifters-10.html)

[ExXB]

Go over to FlyerTalk and you will find extensive discussion about this happening on BA - to the extent of giving those who switch seat reservations around a name, the "Seat Shifters".

BA seat shifters - Page 10 - FlyerTalk Forums (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/468788-ba-seat-shifters-10.html)

Interesting reading. So, rather than a disgruntled employee trying to piss off gold/silver members it's BA policy to do so.

Beware BA. I wont fly them again.

[edi_local]

This isn't so much a seat change issue, but I flew IST-LHR recently with BA on their 767. I did not reserve anything in advance, but when I checked in using their mobile app it forced me to sit in 16A. I could not change this seat for love nor money no matter how many times I opened the seat map and selected an empty seat!

I wanted a window anyway, just a bit further back to avoid the wing as I like a good view. I gave up in the end and grudgingly took 16A, which I tried to change at the bag drop desk, but I was told there were no windows left (this was true, the flight was 100% full from what I saw). I was very unimpressed to see that due to the location of 16A and that flights config, the curtain separating Economy and Club Europe was drawn right in front of row 15, thus meaning I could not see any of the overhead TV Screens for the 4.5 hour flight. The CC were friendly but were unable to move the curtain. Once I got home a quick complaint email was sent addressing both the app failure and the curtain issue and they credited me with a rather generous amount of avois, so much so I could easily book another LHR-IST round trip without even using any of my current avios.

[LondonPax]

Well I took the flight, and I heard the guy in "my" original seat tell a colleague he had nearly a million airmiles (presumably on BA), so he must be at least Gold card holder and maybe they can do that. He also said he had hoped to get upgraded, though obviously he didn't.

The seat I got instead was fine in itself but that won't always be the case and the possibility of being d1cked around like that makes having a Silver card less valuable, so I may be going elsewhere for my long haul flights in future.

[radeng]

Have a moan at Exec Club about it. You may well at least get some extra miles.

[Malone]

I may be wrong, but I was led to believe that all the preallocated seats for Exec Card holders (who had expressed a preference in their profile) were reserved before the flight was open for check-in online, this would presumably include the seat that you reserved when you booked. Your seat would not be changed just to seat a cardholder with a higher "status" card as they would be seated according to their preference after your prebooked seat had been taken into consideration.
All that I can think of is that there has been a configuration change and there are less seats available of the type that you reserved which, in effect, meant they had 2 people reserved in the same seat. I suppose that the higher status card would then take priority.
It is a shame that all the same types of aircraft in an airline cannot be in exactly the same configuration, I presume that this is a historical thing.
Finally, the fact that it has happened twice is probably an unfortunate coincidence.

[Hotel Tango]

Don't know what the BA policy is, but with KLM I can choose my seat 3 months in advance. Some of the more sought after seats are already blocked by the system, presumably to keep them available for the Gold and Platinum punters (who generally don't book their flights that far ahead). The only time I have been re-allocated was due to equipment change.

[PAXboy]

The only time I got to fly Concorde - my window seat agreed at booking was lost. I got a BIG bloke in the window seat and he had to get in and out a fair number of times.

This comment has zero relevance to the thread ... :sad:

[Gulfstreamaviator]

He is a big boy....etc, etc......

hat and cigar and out of here...

[Peter47]

My seat (in Y) was changed between check in at HKG downtown & boarding less than 12 hrs later, and I doubt that this could have been due to a config change (unless they swapped the aircraft between the two LHR overnight flights). Guess it was needed for someone with special needs, family group etc.

I've had an upgrade once to WT+ at short notice in the other direction (early check in at Paddington, it was a few years back). I know that there was a plane change it may have been from a Low J to High J 747 which could explain it.

Seat changes happen.

Incidently with KLM you can (or could) go to any terminal at at Schiphol and change your seat which could be confusing if you don't throw the old BP away. I think that the same is true for Swiss.

[PAXboy]

Just got an email advert from a Big Airline (They ain't my fav airline) that says:

On some airlines you can't even choose your own seat.


Well, I can't be @rsed to go to their web page and look for the small print that has the get out clauses.The correct statement is given here.

On some airlines, you can CHOOSE your own seat and then wait to see which seat you are given on the day. :rolleyes: