British Airways Question

We flew back from London on a Wednesday, and there were dozens of empty seats in economy. You might want to look for an internet cafe, they do have an excellent check-in procedure and it's easy to change your seat from the one they stick you in to a better one. Good luck!

When you check in for the flight you will be given two seats together. It's unlikely that the flight will be so full by the time you check in at the airport that a pair of seats won't be available. If by chance the flight was full and you could not be seated together, you could ask the flight attendant if one of you could move seats. You might also consider asking to be seated across the aisle from each other if two seats together aren't available.

Dave, loved reading about your trip. 238 more days until my trip, but who's counting :) I think I will do the check in thru internet. After looking more in depth, seems like internet cafes should be fairly easy to find. How was BA overall? Do they make you buy those cheap plastic earphones for the onboard entertainment?

You should be able to select your seats now via the BA website (even if you didn't book directly through them), head over to ba.com and select "manage my booking". As a general rule, there are usually lots of empty seats for mid-week flights, but weekend flights are typically full.

check-in is not the same thing as seat assignments. Although you COULD select seat assignments during the check-in process if you wanted.

Maybe I missed understood. I thought that with BA you cannot get seat assignments until you checked in. We are flying World Traveller (Economy), we have no special needs, or young children (My son is 16).

Kristen - If you are traveling on the same confirmation number, then they should try to put you two together but to be sure, find an internet cafe to select your seats. Sometimes the hotels will select seats and print boarding passes even though they don't have internet access for guests. Another option is to have a friend or a family member log on for you. My mom logged on to Air France and picked a seat for my Athens to Paris flight a couple of weeks ago. I just reprinted the boarding pass at the airport.

When I was logged on to the hotel computer in Athens, there were several people waiting to select their seats on their BA flights. I was surprised to find out that BA wouldn't do seat assignments until 24 hours before the first flight unless you were in First, an elite member of the frequent flier program, on a fully refundable ticket, travelling with infants, etc... The details are on the Information page of the BA website. They all did end up with good seats together since they had logged on early and their flights were pretty full.

Kristen,

Flew on BA this summer and we used miles to fly in Club (Business class). Julie is correct that unless you fly first or have status, you can't check in until 24 hours prior to your first flight. I'd recommend doing it right at 24 hours to make sure you both get seats together and decent seats. There is lots of discussion on the BA flyertalk board (mostly elites) and they always recommend getting in 24 hours prior. Bonus if you have to change planes is that you also get to check in for that flight too even if it's past 24 hours (we flew Berlin to Vancouver via Heathrow and got to select seats for both legs 24 hours before the Berlin flight). Have a good trip!

Kristen, We just flew BA lat month. We flew their economy plus, which is worth the extra money (not much more than the economy price) for the leg room. But even if you decide to upgrade to that, it won't help with the seating issue. I have no idea why they won't let you choose your seat when you book the ticket. Our seats were fine going over because I was able to choose the seats exactly 24 hours prior. But for the return, by the time we were able to get the hotel to check in for us, the airline had assigned our seats and we were stuck in the 4 seats across section. But other than that, we were satisfied with BA. I do recommend looking into the premium economy seats. I think they call it World Traveller Plus. Ashley

Ashley, I looked up the difference from World Traveller and World Traveller Plus and it was close to double of what I paid. Though extra leg room would be nice, I can't see spending $123.85 per each inch of extra leg room for it. Almost $900 extra per person. Oh well... :( Couple hundred I would have seriously thought about it.

I would expect they will put your seats together but a trip to an internet cafe will still be worthwhile. You can find out what kind of plane you are riding, visit seat guru for the best seats on that plane, see if you can change to better seats than they had you booked into, print your boarding passes and (if you are carry-on only head straight to your departure gate.

For our flight over and even on the return leg BA had assigned my wife and I seats that were far apart, even though we had booked together with miles and were in the Club section. At T-24 I checked in online and moved us to seats together. There were plenty of open seat pairs, but for some reason they didn't initially put us together. I'd guess their system just assigns each person to a seat regardless of whether booked together or separate, so my advice is go on at T-24 and check in so you get the seats you want and together.

Our flight home from Berlin we stopped at a Dunkin Doughnuts at T-24 as they had internet cafes in most of their stores. We just timed our activities for the day to be near there at T-24. Took all of 5 minutes and then we were off for the rest of the day with no worries. Printed our boarding passes the next day at the airport.

Kristen, I would not have paid nearly double for World Traveller Plus, either. It's not worth it on any airline offering premium economy. I don't remember exactly how much more it was, but no where near double the economy cost. Ours was a roundtrip flight to Heathrow. Anyway, sorry. Ashley

Kristen,

We had a GREAT experience with British Airways. We were able to get excellent seats online, and they had a pack for each seat with headphones, eye mask, and tooth brush with toothpaste. They also had the blankets in a plastic bag, so we knew they weren't just leftover from the last flight, which happens on a lot of other airlines I've heard - yuck! Also, the food was super and the service top notch. Never felt harrassed, always felt I could get what I needed whenever. They gave us plenty to drink (we drink only water or juice on a flight). The fish pie was outstanding, according to my wife, I had the chicken which I regretted. I did consider upgrading to World Traveler Plus, but doubling the price was enough to prevent me from doing that and I'm glad I didn't. The flight was smooth, I love the Boeing 747-400, it's a shame that airplane will be gone in a couple years when the A380s start coming in.

Yeah, I don't know why BA won't let you choose your seats. We flew on them last year, and I had to find an internet cafe so my husband and I would be sure to sit together. They had us seats together, but in the very back of the plane, and I changed it to further toward the front. I would definitely check in 24 hours in advance. Another reason to check in early, is if the flight is over-sold, guess who they bump first... the people who checked in last.

BTW, I'm going again next May to Europe too, but I haven't booked my ticket yet. I am going to book tickets in the Premium economy section because I have long legs, and I swear they've added more rows since I flew them in 2002. When I flew them then, I didn't have a problem in economy. I don't ever remember being so cramped in my life. My knees killed me for two months(!) after flying in economy with them. I will never fly in economy with a 31 inch seat pitch on a long flight ever again. I don't care if the ticket is twice the price, I'll pay it. It's either money or my knees, and since I can't replace my knees, it will have to be money. ;)