Rittish airways seat. Charge

It clearly does for them, as they have been doing this for years. Relevant elites don't have to pay to get a seat either immediately or prior to check in.

"Relevant elites."

You may want to correct the spelling of the airlines in your title.

You may want to check the seating map of the aircraft you’ll be flying on seatguru.com to get an idea of the number of business class seats available.

You can then choose your seat, 24 hours prior to your flight, at no extra charge.

Have a wonderful trip!

It certainly makes sense for them.

If you are flying solo and do not require a specific seat ( window or aisle), you can wait till check-in and will be assigned a seat for free.

If you are flying with a partner, and you want insure you are seated together, you might want to pay. If you are flying on one ticket, BA will seat you together at the check-in time IF there are paired seats left. But no guarantees.

We fly business class on BA with miles and always pay to choose seats, as we like the upper deck on the 747.

It's a longtime policy, well known among those who fly BA. Personally, it seems to me like a real kick in the arse to BA's best customers and awfully consumer-unfriendly. It's just one reason I'll never fly BA business class (but it's not the only one).

I stopped flying BA (which is what I assume you mean for Rittish Airways) for family trips a couple of years ago because of what I think is their ridiculous charge to select seats when I am paying thousands of dollars per ticket. That being said, when traveling alone as I am doing right now, BA is not my first choice but if the price of the flight is right, I opt for BA and I do not pay the fee and take whatever seat I get and am fine with it. Bear in mind that if you do not pay, odds are you will have one of the two interior seats in the row. I was in Row 17E for my flight on Sunday to London which was a little bit of pain because I drink a lot of water on flights and had to clamber over a stranger to get to the bathroom.

Yes, I was shocked when BA wanted to not only charge me, but charge me a huge amount of money to reserve a business class seat over and above the amount of the ticket. I felt for the amount of the ticket a choice of seat should also be included.

BA told me that they charged because every business class seat was equally as nice so I would be happy in any seat I got as well as not allowing advance seat reservation allowed them to more easily assign seat together for those traveling with family or friends. I, and Seat Guru, disagree about the statement that all BA business class seats are equally nice.

However, this scheme must work for them because they have been doing it for many years now and seem to be ready to continue doing so.

If you log in BA at exactly 24 hours before the flight, you should have a reasonable selection of seats. Previously unavailable seats are usually made available then. The BA mobile site works really well for seat reservations; we have done it successfully sitting in the corner of a museum, and have had no complaints about the seats we were able to chose. Research and know the aircraft you will be flying. Don't pay extra!
If you fly BA more frequently, you'll earn status, and will be able to chose seats a week in advance [Bronze] or at time of booking [Silver.]
Safe travels!

Yes, all part of the downward spiral for BA. It's not typically an issue for us as we're usually travelling as a family of four with children so we're always seated together and no issues with clambering over strangers. We did lose our silver status this year but were able to select seats in the upper deck at check in which suited us perfectly.

Just booked an intercontinental Business Class flight on Brtish
airways and was told I would have to pay extra to reserve a seat in
advance. Considering what they charge for business class, does that
policy make any sense?

Whether it makes sense or not, it doesn't make sense to us and we won't give them our business because of it.

I took a chance on my BA flights from London to Athens and got what I wanted on both routes. However, I paid to select my seat from LAX-LHR and back, which I wasn't too thrilled with. But as I recall, Lufthansa did the same.

"It's not typically an issue for us as we're usually travelling as a family of four with children so we're always seated together and no issues with clambering over strangers."
I thought so too until a flight when they put my family of four all over the plane -- no two seats were anywhere near each other and they initially assigned my 10 year old to a seat on the upper deck and the rest of the family to a seat on the lower deck. This was on a flight from Paris to SFO and when we left Paris, we had the "random" seat assignments but we were able to get the situation resolved at Heathrow for the much longer flight home.