Boston to Heathrow and Back on British Airways: Whose Seat Map Do I Believe?

Are you in economy or business class? Traveling alone or with others? I looked at Flightaware.com and it shows the recent outbound flights (BA 238) to be on 789 and the return (BA 213) being a 747. These may change seasonally, daily or weekly. I checked May 19 and 22 for flight 213 and it shows an A380 for the flight! For May 16, it's a 747. There's no telling what you are going to get! You may want to pose this question on flyertalk.com and see what their experts say.

I haven't flown that route but on other BA routes from the US I've noticed they will switch up the aircraft often. For example, the flight from Austin to Heathrow is normally 787 but sometimes it's replaced with a 777 and seat guru doesn't reflect this.

DJ

Use the BA seat map for the plane that is scheduled for your flight, but watch out for equipment changes.

I look at seat guru, for a general guide, but don't religiously pick a seat from it...just to get an idea of the really bad seats. In other words, I can't tell you if my the BA plane matched the sight, so why am I posting? Because you are on my favorite flight!

Flightmapper.net shows BA switching to an A380 on 213 on 26 March, and from a 787 to a 777 on the same day for 238. SeatGuru maps for BA's A380 match the map at BA's site. The 777 maps don't match, but I came across a post somewhere that BA is reconfiguring the layout of some 777's.

@Wray: I've flown it before. Advantage for me is it's a day flight. I don't sleep on overnight flights. Getting to Logan/JFK/Dulles for a day flight plus hotel stays and flights to and from here (Raleigh-Durham) bumps the cost of a ticket with a good price to the cost of flying American's daily but seldom discounted London night flight from here. At least I don't arrive a sleepless zombie.

Always go with the airline to find the exact type of plane.

As stated, types change during different times. And, airlines sometimes have different seat variations for the same type of aircraft.

You might look into booking through American Airlines. They offer most BA flights as codeshare. And, they have a nonstop from LHR to RDU on a 767. (I've taken it.)

Book RDU to Boston with an overnight layover to the BA flight and then the nonstop from London to Raleigh for the return. Technically, it's a roundtrip RDU-LHR even though one segment is operated by BA.

I also prefer to take the day flights. I'm usually on the BA flight from JFK.

From what I have seen on Flyertalk in the BA forum, you cannot trust the SeatGuru seat charts. The BA one is what you should use.

@JC, That is almost the only flight I take because I too never sleep on overnight flights. This way I get to sleep at night in a real bed vs no sleep sitting up on a plane. So much more pleasant. If I'm flying on to the rest of Europe, I now book a room at Sofitel and fly BA the next morning...late morning if possible...to where ever...this year to Greece. It's a extra treat, I suppose, but sure less expensive than first class by far...so it is my first class system. I think we all decide what we prefer to spend money on. I prefer to arrive as rested as I can, relax, and ease relaxed into my vacation.

@Frank - I've done that RDU-BOS-LHR-RDU loop. Works well. The current tickets were a spur of the moment buy. I was lured in by a deal in a BA email.

The 787 seems to get introduced to 'promote' a route, then re deployed down the track.
BA has such a mix of long haul aircraft that I wouldn't even be certain that what they say on their website is the equipment you end up flying in.