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TheEscapist_

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Are BA's prices for reserving seats high or not? Easyjet and Ryanair don't seem to charge as much. Got a wee trip coming up, for all four flights it's costing £100 to reserve seats for me and my friend. That is stupidly high in my opinion. I know I don't have to reserve seats but I always prefer to, may just risk it this time!


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gsnedders

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Are BA's prices for reserving seats high or not? Easyjet and Ryanair don't seem to charge as much. Got a wee trip coming up, for all four flights it's costing £100 to reserve seats for me and my friend. That is stupidly high in my opinion. I know I don't have to reserve seats but I always prefer to, may just risk it this time!

They're relatively high, especially long haul. £25*4, I guess, which I'd hope is for some long haul flight?

Realistically, I've never had any problem choosing a seat as soon as you can for free—just make sure you know when it is (typically 24h before departure of the first leg) and do it ASAP.
 

atillathehunn

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Ryanair seems to have a flexible pricing model with all their add-ons. Though I've never been asked for £25 before.

Seems high, though.

I wouldn't pay it.

As gsnedders said, wait until free seat selection opens at T-24 hours and bag something reasonably acceptable.
 

me123

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BA do indeed charge a small fortune for seat selection; I assume that fee is for a long-haul flight, but it's still high. Ultimately, it's not worth it IMO anyway. Reserving your seats doesn't prevent you from having a morbidly obese person behind you kicking your seat for hours, or someone sitting beside you who doesn't know what a shower is for. And they usually do manage to seat groups together. Besides, you'll usually find that they are able to change your seat for "operational reasons" anyway and not refund a penny.
 

Bletchleyite

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BA do indeed charge a small fortune for seat selection; I assume that fee is for a long-haul flight, but it's still high. Ultimately, it's not worth it IMO anyway. Reserving your seats doesn't prevent you from having a morbidly obese person behind you kicking your seat for hours, or someone sitting beside you who doesn't know what a shower is for. And they usually do manage to seat groups together. Besides, you'll usually find that they are able to change your seat for "operational reasons" anyway and not refund a penny.

I would expect the *seat selection* fee to be refunded if not honoured, as that is payment for a service not delivered.

If not, I'd very strongly consider a small claims court claim.

Edit: they do, though you have to claim it:

https://www.britishairways.com/travel/webforms/public/en_gb?eId=120001&wfpId=seating_claim_form
 
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ld0595

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Are BA's prices for reserving seats high or not? Easyjet and Ryanair don't seem to charge as much. Got a wee trip coming up, for all four flights it's costing £100 to reserve seats for me and my friend. That is stupidly high in my opinion. I know I don't have to reserve seats but I always prefer to, may just risk it this time!


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Yep, BA seat charges are ridiculous. It's at least £7 for the flight to Heathrow and then to the East coast of America, it's at least £30. That's £74 for a round trip and you don't even get good seats for that! Not as bad as AA though who are charging £65 for a window seat one way from Heathrow to Philadelphia!
 

TheEscapist_

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Yep, BA seat charges are ridiculous. It's at least £7 for the flight to Heathrow and then to the East coast of America, it's at least £30. That's £74 for a round trip and you don't even get good seats for that! Not as bad as AA though who are charging £65 for a window seat one way from Heathrow to Philadelphia!



I just thought since they always say they're competing with Ryanair and Easyjet they wouldn't charge that much. It's for 4 very short flights (al about an hour). The most expensive one is £15 a seat on the shortest flight.


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gsnedders

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I just thought since they always say they're competing with Ryanair and Easyjet they wouldn't charge that much. It's for 4 very short flights (al about an hour). The most expensive one is £15 a seat on the shortest flight.

That's expensive by BA's own standards, then, from memory!
 

me123

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I would expect the *seat selection* fee to be refunded if not honoured, as that is payment for a service not delivered.

If not, I'd very strongly consider a small claims court claim.

Edit: they do, though you have to claim it:

https://www.britishairways.com/travel/webforms/public/en_gb?eId=120001&wfpId=seating_claim_form

I'm glad that BA do.

When I last flew with VS, I was on a 747. Being a big child, I paid extra to sit on the top deck because I'd always wanted to. (VS are one of the few carriers with economy on the top deck of the 747). Unfortunately, the flight was only about 20% loaded to they closed the top deck. They were quite open about refusing to refund me, stating that they had allocated me an "equivalent" seat, although eventually agreed to upgrade me to an exit row, presumably to shut me up but with near unlimited leg room I was happy enough.
 

Tim R-T-C

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In wildly unrelated news, Ukraine International are starting flights from Kiev to Manchester. Four days a week, terrible, terrible timings. Leave Kiev at 20.10, arrive Manchester 22.30; leave Manchester 01.55 arrive Kiev 07.20.

Assume a 737.

That could be useful, I fancy a trip back to Kyiv to do Chernobyl and this would get you a full day there - in exchange for minimal sleep of course. The BA flight leaves about 8am, but with time zones, flight time and transfers, you don't get into the city until about 2pm, essentially losing the day, particularly in winter.
 

atillathehunn

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Fair enough then. I assume they will have to pay some kind of premium to take off at that time, is there some kind of curfew?
 

gsnedders

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Fair enough then. I assume they will have to pay some kind of premium to take off at that time, is there some kind of curfew?

I believe it's just limits on how many planes in each noise category can take off overnight; depending on how close to the limit they are there may be extra charges.
 

Jetlagged

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Ryanair have just emailed me with their latest money making scheme. In the past, at the gate we have always been able to put our cabin bags in the hold for free. Now, provided you have a checked bag in the hold, you can also put your cabin bag there, but at a cost of €5/£5. If you do that you will only be allowed to take one small bag into the cabin and it has to go under the seat. If you do not have checked baggage you will still get the free bag at the gate. Good luck policing that.

Meanwhile, back in easyLand, the last time that we flew I did notice that at the gate they were offering free Speedy Boarding to anyone that would put their cabin bag in the hold. Not surprisingly they got more takers than Ryanair did in our queue. They eventually declared the maximum 90 bags reached and all others HAD to go whether you wanted or not.
 

atillathehunn

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Ryanair have just emailed me with their latest money making scheme. In the past, at the gate we have always been able to put our cabin bags in the hold for free. Now, provided you have a checked bag in the hold, you can also put your cabin bag there, but at a cost of €5/£5. If you do that you will only be allowed to take one small bag into the cabin and it has to go under the seat. If you do not have checked baggage you will still get the free bag at the gate. Good luck policing that.

Meanwhile, back in easyLand, the last time that we flew I did notice that at the gate they were offering free Speedy Boarding to anyone that would put their cabin bag in the hold. Not surprisingly they got more takers than Ryanair did in our queue. They eventually declared the maximum 90 bags reached and all others HAD to go whether you wanted or not.

I'm trying to get my head round the Ryanair thing. They offer paid gate check for people who have already paid for hold baggage? How is that possibly an incentive?

I assume that when they reach the 90 bags they start checking them as a matter of course for free anyway? So why wouldn't I just wait until they mug you for the bag on the stairs like normal?


The easyJet giving speedy boarding models airlines like BA where they give you priority if you're willing to check a bag. I don't do it on easyJet because they only allow one piece - I don't want to have to carry my laptop onto the flight. I do on BA where I'm allowed a laptop bag as well.
 

Jetlagged

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I'm trying to get my head round the Ryanair thing. They offer paid gate check for people who have already paid for hold baggage? How is that possibly an incentive?

No, the paid bag is handed in at the check in desk along with your regular hold bag. But you are right. Hardly any incentive.

I assume that when they reach the 90 bags they start checking them as a matter of course for free anyway? So why wouldn't I just wait until they mug you for the bag on the stairs like normal?

I don't even wait to be mugged, but as soon as I get to the gate I offer my bag up anyway. The look on their faces is hilarious. They cannot believe that someone has come forward voluntarily. I must add that we only do this when we are not in a rush the other end, or when we know that the bags will be delivered to the carousel before or pretty soon after us.

The easyJet giving speedy boarding models airlines like BA where they give you priority if you're willing to check a bag. I don't do it on easyJet because they only allow one piece - I don't want to have to carry my laptop onto the flight. I do on BA where I'm allowed a laptop bag as well.

I see that Ryanair are also trialling a new system where they will check your bag through to the final destination where you have more than one sector. I believe it's only for flights through Rome at the moment. It will be very interesting to see how that works out for them.
 

Tetchytyke

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The Ryanair idea would only make sense if you DON'T have a hold bag. Paying a couple of quid to be able to take liquids would be worth it. But if I've paid for hold luggage I don't need to take liquids in my cabin bag.

Very strange.
 

Bletchleyite

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I don't even wait to be mugged, but as soon as I get to the gate I offer my bag up anyway. The look on their faces is hilarious. They cannot believe that someone has come forward voluntarily. I must add that we only do this when we are not in a rush the other end, or when we know that the bags will be delivered to the carousel before or pretty soon after us.

I most certainly don't, ever. The reason is that gate checked bags, whether voluntary or mandatory, are checked limited release - you will see this on the tag. The meaning of this is that you will not get the normally due compensation if the bag is lost.

I seriously annoyed an easyJet gate person a while ago by loudly pointing this out to another passenger so people could hear, as I personally believe it to be an absolute disgrace. Only where peoples' bags are being checked because they have broken a rule (i.e. too big/heavy) is that in any way acceptable.

There really needs to be a return to free "proper" checked bags, which will solve all of this problem. Perhaps it could be legally mandated, to avoid the race to the bottom causing issues.
 

Jetlagged

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I most certainly don't, ever. The reason is that gate checked bags, whether voluntary or mandatory, are checked limited release - you will see this on the tag. The meaning of this is that you will not get the normally due compensation if the bag is lost.

I seriously annoyed an easyJet gate person a while ago by loudly pointing this out to another passenger so people could hear, as I personally believe it to be an absolute disgrace. Only where peoples' bags are being checked because they have broken a rule (i.e. too big/heavy) is that in any way acceptable.

There really needs to be a return to free "proper" checked bags, which will solve all of this problem. Perhaps it could be legally mandated, to avoid the race to the bottom causing issues.

Thank you for that valuable information Neil. I had no idea about Limited Release and cannot say whether I have ever seen it in a Ryanair tag or not. As this was all new to me, I did have a search on the net and came up with the following.

Whilst attaching a 'Limited' Release' tag does limit the airline's responsibility to an extent, it seems that in the case of a complete loss, they are still liable. Further, according to what I read, they are not liable for any damage caused to any of your items with the Limited Release tag.

Despite that, in the case of these gate bags, it was said that they would have a problem avoiding paying compensation. You are only on Limited Release if you sign a declaration stating that you agree to release the airline from liability for your baggage. As I have never been asked to sign such a document, they would have a problem enforcing the lack of liability.

Thanks to your warning, I am now aware of this possibility and would never sign such a release.

Colin
 

atillathehunn

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The Ryanair idea would only make sense if you DON'T have a hold bag. Paying a couple of quid to be able to take liquids would be worth it. But if I've paid for hold luggage I don't need to take liquids in my cabin bag.

Very strange.

I was just thinking that. It seems completely the wrong way round. The defence, I would imagine, would be that people checking bags are at the desk already, whereas those without luggage don't visit the desk. Processing these payments at the gate would be time consuming (and therefore expensive).

Still daft if you're offering free but mandatory bag checks over 90 bags. Though those bag tags do sometime mysteriously fall off on the way down the stairs. Can't imagine how that keeps happening.
 

AlterEgo

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Cabin baggage is the biggest farce on short haul flights. It is ridiculous how long it takes to board and deplane thanks to people farting about with big (but legal) bags.

Hold bags ought to be less expensive, and reliability and punctuality of delivery needs to be a lot better.
 

atillathehunn

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I see that Ryanair are also trialling a new system where they will check your bag through to the final destination where you have more than one sector. I believe it's only for flights through Rome at the moment. It will be very interesting to see how that works out for them.

I've heard they wanted to try this before, though I didn't think it actually ever came to anything. Rome is unusual, though. Their biggest hubs are Stansted and Dublin.

Outside Europe many LCCs offer through connections, and SkyScanner often gives me an unofficial connection via Dublin as the cheapest option on some Euopean routes. I'm happy to do this (I'm usually HBO round Europe) and accept the risks, though wouldn't try it with checked bags with some of the timings. Giving me a through ticket (and therefore letting me use the connection lane rather than checking in again) would be a huge bonus.
 

atillathehunn

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Cabin baggage is the biggest farce on short haul flights. It is ridiculous how long it takes to board and deplane thanks to people farting about with big (but legal) bags.

Hold bags ought to be less expensive, and reliability and punctuality of delivery needs to be a lot better.

I agree. Worse in the winter with big thick coats as well as baggage.

For a nominal fee to put my rollaboard in the hold and no charge for a small laptop bag in the cabin I would be happy to pay it. Spend a little money on automated bag drop machines to reduce queues. Happy days.
 

atillathehunn

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https://www.businessinsider.nl/emir...mp-travel-ban-2017-4/?international=true&r=US

Article is too long to quote. Emirates cutting back on a number of routes for longer than the Ramadam slump mentioned elsewhere. A couple of double dailies are going down to single daily, a few others are going from daily to 5x weekly.

Emirates cites the travel ban, but Qatar and Etihad aren't reducing their capacity (probably because they aren't as frequent), but the cynic in me suggests that this is more because they oversaturated the market and are now feeling the pinch and have a get out of jail free card.
 

AlterEgo

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Aurigny have emailed me to say that there will be some charity Trislander flights before the retirement of this aircraft, and to keep an eye on their Facebook page "in the coming days" for details.
 

fowler9

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Aurigny have emailed me to say that there will be some charity Trislander flights before the retirement of this aircraft, and to keep an eye on their Facebook page "in the coming days" for details.

Wow, went on a Trislander once as a child on a pleasure flight from Liverpool over the Blackpool Illuminations after my dad one a radio competition.
 
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