BA and seating

[toonmadlad]

Hi, we have booked with BA for our flights in October, we are not Gold,Silver or Bronze members so can only select our seats 24h before departure, unless we want to pay the additional few hundred £ (per flight) for the 5 of us, 3 Adults 2 kids aged 2 & 4.

My question from anybody that's been in the same situation is do BA tend to keep families together? and historically is there likely to be any seats to choose from once the 24h booking window opens?

Thanks

[tinkerella123]

Yes BA are very good for placing families together, they will allocate your seats about 5 days before, if you don’t like them you can change them at 24hrs before, however this may be window and aisle seats, ie 3 seats abc, then aisle seats de,

[babbymint]

In 2019 when I hit the 24hour window, they had already allocated us in the 4 together seats in the centre, same for return leg.

[leahamy]

Although BA do seem to do their best and we have always had seats together in the past, I decided to use Avios Miles to pre-book seats for 6 of us for September 2021 flights.
Would also suggest logging-in occasionally as I have noticed in the past that BA sometimes have seats available for pre-booking with no extra charge - it's just a case of catching them at the right time. Good luck!

[DonkeyCentreArf]

We have BA flights booked for October but at the moment, I have held off any seat reservations as they are expensive for PE.

I make a point of checking my booking every couple of weeks to look at the seat map and see what is free. If it looks like things are filling up, then I might jump (potentially using some Avios I have spare) but only because we are three and are likely to get stuck in the middle of the plane which is not my preference.

[Katnic1]

Have you tried looking at the costs? For some reason our BA flight home is not charging for pre booking seats, so we have 4 together for free. They wanted to charge for outbound though, so left that. As others have said, if you have children under 12 they will allocate you together 5-7 days before.

[emmabrown68]

I booked today with BA and they told me as we are a family if 3 (7 year old and 2 x adults) we would be allocated 5-6 days before so I've decided to hang fire and keep checking nearer the time. If it starts to look really tight then I might book but if not, I'll hang on to see what they allocate us. It's a difficult one to know what to do for the best isn't it!

[toonmadlad]

Thanks for all your replies, some very good advice and info there
Just checked the booking and the only flight I can book seats for free is the AA segment MCO-Philadelphia.

As advised, I'll keep checking the booking to see if anything opens up prior, failing that I'll take my chance at the 24hr opening and be keeping my fingers crossed

[Princesses 3]

From your name I’m assuming you are Newcastle based. Just wondering if you have a connecting flight from Newcastle as if you do you can book the London flight at the same time as the Newcastle one opens so you get first choice from the seats which aren’t pre booked. We’ve done this a number of times but to be honest when we’ve gone in the BA selected seats were together anyway