British Airways seat selection

We've flown business class with BA several times, and we always pay the seat selection price (toward the back is less, but still not cheap.) I didn't see the prices drop as departure approached, and we didn't want to be "sleeping" apart.

You can book your seat for free 24 hours in advance. Which plane are you flying? The newly remodeled BA business class seats are all great- there's no first class seats.
Check the configuration.
Good luck.

We fly BA Premium Economy and always suck up paying the extra as often there are few seats left when we book and we want to sit together. It was suggested that seats further back tend to be less and that is true in PE, so might be your best bet. I’m nervous that waiting for the 24 hr free choice will put us in separate and middle seats. With Business the middle seat option goes away, but you could still be separated.

I’m flying business class on AA in Oct for the first time in my life and I booked my seat for no additional cost at the time of purchase. I assumed this was standard procedure for all airlines. So you’re saying for BA you pay for business class and then again depending on where you want to sit!? Do other airlines do this too?

And thus the reason my preferred airline to fly to London is Virgin Airlines. Premier Economy seat.

Next time, start by looking at BA flights as codeshares from the American Airlines site - you may be able to avoid the seat reservation fees.

It depends on what’s comfortable for you. You will have a seat in the class that you paid for. If where you sit is critical then that may come at a cost. If it doesn’t matter then a roll of the dice (waiting) will still be a win.

We waited for the free 24 hour seat selection on BA Premium Economy, London to Seattle flight last summer and the only seats left were up against the bathrooms. Pay for the seat selection!

BA's seat-selection fees were somewhat higher than everyone else's the last time I researched that question. I avoid BA for that reason (along with the crazy taxes and fees it charges on frequent-flyer tickets). I do often end up paying a seat-selection fee for trips to Europe on non-US airlines. It's annoying, but I want an aisle seat and am not willing to roll the dice on the long transatlantic flight. I'll take a chance on short intra-Europe hops.

I just booked an eastbound frequent-flier ticket on Austrian Air through the United website and was surprised and pleased to see that I could choose an ordinary coach seat at no cost.

So you’re saying for BA you pay for business class and then again depending on where you want to sit!? Do other airlines do this too?

@lyndash - on United Polaris, no. You get to select your seat for no additional fee.

It is not a “seat upgrade”, it is what British Airways charges for the “privileges” of choosing your own seat in advance of the check-in time. That is on top of the “supplemental” fee they charge if you book the flight with miles/Avios. And it does not go down (or up)as the flight date approaches. I believe have read, however, that the fee is slightly lower if you pay it as the time you make the booking, and pay in the same transaction.

The fee applies to Economy, PremiumEconomy, and Business Class seats, but it is much higher for Business Class than Economy. Within each cabin, the more desirable seats (usually those toward the front of the cabin) are more expensive.

As noted above, American Airlines does not charge for seat selection like this. I don’t know about United or Delta. If you do not want to pay extra, you can wait until Online Check-in (24 hours in advance of the flight) and move yourself to any available seat for free, if you do not like your assigned seat. In all the flights we have done on BA in Business Classs with our miles, I have never done that. I always pay so we can be sure of having the seats we want. (It is actually not guaranteed; they can move you for operational or other reasons, but once you have paid you can move yourself around if you want. Thus, if they change the airplane type and the seating is different, you can pick your seat for free on the new airplane. )

The new BA single row seats - against the windows- are fantastic. You have lots of room and storage. Even if you sat together in the new double seat configuration, you're still not very close, with the additional room, and conversation is hard. My advise is wait , and get your seat 24 hours out - free. In the new configuration, there really aren't any bad seats.
Safe travels!

Thanks all, very helpful! Yes, I am used to American where I would pay for the premium Economy & seat selection as one fee. I could have booked thru American this time, but I really wanted to fly on the Airbus 350 with the new seat configuration. It sounds like it is well worth it. Thanks again! Cindy

When we fly BA business, we pay on the way over and take our chances on the way back. So far, we’ve always had seats together on the way back. It did seem that the fee was less this year than last, but I don’t know if it made a difference that we’re on a codeshare leg from LHR to Barcelona.

We have given up on British Airways for all the reasons mentioned above.

If you have status on another One World airline that allows you to book fee free reservations on that airline then you don’t have to pay on BA for seat selection. For example, I have status on Alaska and when I book on BA I don’t have to pay for seat selection.

We previously preferred BA Business but our last experience was not pleasant so the shine has worn off (it was just at that point when the airlines were adding additional flights coming off COVID peak. Cabin service was disorganized/haphazard, and food quality was very much lacking. I think they were using staff not sufficiently trained or experienced).

Our next flight (March 2024) is with KLM Business and no seat fee so that was great. We’ve used KLM/Air France Business before and were happy so likely will go back to them.

I can see worrying about sitting next to each other in economy or premium economy, but business? You are each going to be in your own little cubicles anyway.

I made my reservations for a round trip Seattle to London for the summer of 2022 with American Airlines, but the flight was operated by British Airways. I was in the main cabin -- not the absolute cheapest location. As a solo traveler I didn't need to worry about sitting near anyone in particular.

So I decided to wait till the 24 hour window for free seat selection. For the SEA-->LHR flight I got online within 5 minutes of the opening of that window and easily got my preferred aisle seat toward the front of the main cabin seats. When I did the same thing for the LHR-->SEA flight, I'd already been assigned a middle seat farther back in that section. There was more than one aisle seat still available and I easily switched the seat assignment to a great one for my return home.

Maybe I was just lucky, maybe preferring an aisle seat is a good thing or maybe getting online right after those 24 windows open improved my luck. The major point is that if you're assigned a seat you don't like and there are seats available that will work for you, it is possible to switch to one of those and have a guaranteed seat of your choice without paying extra.

BTW, I did pay extra for RT SEA<-->LHR seats on a trip in 2016. I did it out of some of the fear others have reported and because it was only $25 each flight. By the time I made my reservations for 2022, the price had escalated so much that I wasn't willing to pay that much in advance for my pick of a seat.

Apparently, yes, you do have to pay.

I don’t ever travel business but this is something that I am aware of people being annoyed about. On the other hand, regular travellers tend to have a favourite seat and are happy to pay in order to get it.

I have silver status with BA so get to choose my seat at the time of booking for free however, as others have noted, if you're flying in the new Club Suite seats (which you most likely will flying from PHX) then there really is little point in worrying about sitting together as you're so coccooned in your own 'suite' that it's actually quite difficult to converse with someone in the adjacent seat. I flew business from Phoenix with BA last December and whilst I was in a single window seat my two sons were sat together in the central aisle but because of the style of the seats they found that they could easily avoid interracting with each other.

“they found that they could easily avoid interracting with each other”. Thanks for the chuckle.

We have those Club Suites on the later Seattle flight, on a 787. I agree that the seats are isolated from one another, even in the paired seats in the center. My husband and I have tried all combinations—-window seats one behind the other, window seat plus aisle seat directly across, and the pair in the center. None of them give us as much contact with one another as we are accustomed to, but we manage to survive. Since I end up passing half my food to my husband, we will take the center pair on the overnight flight from now on, so we don’t pass have to pass things across the aisle. But for the return flight in the daytime, I still want my window seat!

I just bought my first British Airways ticket (economy) and it looks like this is just their standard procedure - charge extra for the privilege of choosing a specific seat. It's bad enough that it's an added charge, but they wouldn't even display the cost until after I bought the ticket. This made comparing prices to other flights extremely challenging. I'm still shocked to hear that they also do this for business class. For those curious the cost of an Economy ticket seat (excluding exit rows/extra leg room seats) was:

$53-99 for PDX-LHR (one way) and $11-$27 for LHR-DUB.

I hope this doesn't become a trend. Unfortunately I couldn't find an equivalently convenient ticket with another airline, but I did spend extra time researching to try and not go with British Airways.