Not paying for seats on BA

[cambsno]

Just a heads up, booked with BA last year and was not going to pay for seats. Checked the app today and seats allocated ahead of check in with us 4 (2ad and 2ch) all in the same row of 4. Check in not till tomorrow!

No guarantees but would say that it would be unlucky for a family of 4 not to be sat together.

[Darthmickey]

We did same last year with TC. All sat together outward and inward 👍

[chrisxal]

I have never paid extra for our seats, we just wait and do OLCI 24 hrs before we fly and have never had a problem choosing our seats.

[fredflintstone]

Ba allocate those with kids about 5 days out and seem to be able to see your seats. The rest get allocated at 3 days, but you cannot see it until online checkin. If you look at a BA flight at 3 days it will suddenly have lots of seats blocked (starting from front of plane) and some of these will be allocated to passengers although you cannot see it until online checkin. It's why buying a seat on BA in under 3 days doesn't make sence. They will have allocated everyone seats and if possible you would have been kept together. If not, then the only selection left would also not allow you to sit together!

And if you look at the Is my flight full thread over the last year you will see that the minority pay to reserve seats on BA leaving most of them for BA to allocate.

[clochette]

I paid last time we went to WDW with TC but we are flying BA this year and I have decided not to bother. It's just me and DD(16) going this time so she will be fine if we are split up. TBH, it makes no difference to me, as she will just put her headphones on and ignore me for the whole flight anyway. I might get a decent conversation from a stranger!

[MarkUK]

Never ever pay for seats and have always been sat together.The airlines get enough out of me!

[jndt]

We paid for our seats to LAX last December as we didn't want to be separated from our children (16, 14 and 9). I didn't realise I could have had ds age 9 and my seat allocated next to each other foc as he has ASD. I'll make sure I inform them in future.

[Jessika]

I’ve never paid either. Now my youngest is 12 we aren’t allocated together at a week out . BA seats are available for free to reserve 48 hours before the flight.what I’ve found during seat availability checks in the run up to the flight is that many seats in groups of 3 or 4 appear as unavailable or already reserved to then become available to reserve at 48 hours before the flight. I almost panic bought seats for my last flight but held my nerve to be able to reserve fantastic seats together.

[Persnicketty]

BA are, I think, the most family friendly and the most diligent when it comes to free advance seat allocation for families with younger kids. (You'll still hear the odd BA horror story, but no airline is immune to errors and mishaps).

I won't defend their seat selection pricing though... :-D

[LaurenC]

We're looking at booking Thomas cook flights a d dont want to pay the £178 extra to book seats together but I dont want my 4 year old to be sat next to a stranger!