atillathehunn
Established Member
Sounds fun. Going to have to wait till next year alas.
How long are you heading to Yerevan for?
Sounds fun. Going to have to wait till next year alas.
How long are you heading to Yerevan for?
Ideally a week or more and perhaps head i to Georgia, I want to see a bit of the area.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
Tbilsi is stunning!
Would love to head to that part of the world again.
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?
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?
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.