Am I Reading BA Website Correctly?
 

That you can now pay at the time of booking to guarantee a seat assignment?

DH and I are still having our ongoing debate on flying to Nairobi. Just can't justify the BC ticket cost. We looked at Virgin Atlantic PE leaving 8/23 but we wouldn't get into Nairobi till 8/25; no can do - we need to arrive 8/24.

So now we're looking at BA and the debate is on either World Traveller Plus or World Traveller. Saw some old threads in a search that WTP isn't that great. It's $1,500 more PP versus WT. Either way we would want to get the seats that are in row of 2 versus row of 4. Looked at the BA website which talks about selecting seat assignments at time of booking for a fee. We'd pay the fee, but wanted to see if anybody else has done so - thoughts? WTP v WT?

Happened a year ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8274200.stm

We just returned from Nairobi via LHR on BA. We used AA FF miles for coach and paid $30pp extra for seat assignments. The reason we did this was because the flight from LHR to NBO is 3-3-3 and I knew I would get stuck in the middle seat since it is "assumed" that I must sit next to my husband. :) We chose one window and one aisle seat hoping that the middle seat would be empty. BUT at check in at LHR, we were told that we had been assigned seats in WTP--a window and an aisle with 2 seat configuration. Nice--but I would not pay $1500 extra for it.
Coming back we sat in WT with 3 seats across but the middle seat was empty. This was almost as good as WTP.

Thanks alanRow and JaneB.

I think we're going ahead with the WT seats and pay for the seat assignments as you did JaneB. Glad to know on the 3-3-3 configuration as we typically like aisle seats across from each other in that situation. Maybe we'll luck out on an empty seat beside us too. One can only hope!

You can use SeatGuru to check on the seating configuration for the flight. Apparently From Heathrow to Nairobi it is a 777, and has 3-3-3 in World Traveler, but 2-4-2 in WTPlus.

As soon as you buy your tickets you can see the actual seating chart and how full the plane is. If you chooose your aisle seat in a row where the window seat is already taken, you might have a better chance of keeping the middle seat vacant.

You may be offered an upgrade to WTP at a decent price, but keep mind the difference in seating configuration. Also the difference in price to "buy" your seat ahead of time--I think it is more in WTP than WT.

I've often paid for World Traveller Plus and thought it was worth the extra cost. 1) The extra 8 inches of leg room and slightly wider seat make the difference for me between very uncomfortable and comfortable. 2) Also, my experience has been that about 1/3 of the time that I've paid for WTP, I've received an upgrade to Club on at least one leg of my trip (I don't count on it, but it's a nice bonus).