I'm flying Newcastle (UK) to Heathrow and HR to South Africa tomorrow with BA. I'm really mad as booked a year ago and pre-booked our seats only to find they have been changed on the system - I know it s not guaranteed but they are npt great seats or anything - why doe sthis happen?

Also, I'm busy trying to check-in online and it won't let me into the system even though its less than 24 hrs to go - why?

Real querie is if I manage to get checked in tonight do I ptint a boarding card eac? and when we get to airport if we drop bags in the fast bag drop it won't have any on going stickers on the cases so how will they know where the cases are suppossed to go?

Please help if you can. Thanks

Sorry I didn't spell check my post. I'm so uptight at the moment about getting booted out of our seats together.

I'll answer your questions as best I can. I did the online checkin w/BA in June. When I got to the airport I went to fast bag drop where they put the stickers on to indicate where the bags are going. Although there's still a line at the fast bag drop, it's a much shorter wait because the people ahead of you are not checking in.

Here's how it all went. I checked in on line about 24 hours before our flight, but the message said to print my boarding pass at the airport kiosk. The next day we arrived at the airport kiosk and a BA rep was standing by the kiosk to offer assistance. We printed out our boarding passes in a jiffy and we went straight to fast bag drop where they put the stickers on the bags. The whole process took about 15 minutes at most, then we were off to the gate. Actually, we were off to the stores because we had time to spare.

As for why it won't let you into the system, all I can tell you is that it might be down. Just RELAX, try again later, and have a good trip.

Thanks for reply it is a help. I'm still trying to check-in but without luck.

In relation to OLCI, leave this alone for an hour or so. For some reason, if you have been tinkering about in Manage My Booking system a few minutes before OLCI becomes active, it will take a while for the BA system to catch up with itself. This is incredibly frustrating and a flaw in BA's online doodahs.

In terms of seat allocations and changes...well...difficult to say. Quite often it will be because one of the curtains for First, Club or World Traveller + will have moved. What were your 'desirable' seats? The seats at the back three rows where it goes to a 2-4-2 config are often given over to deportees/prisoners or disabled folk. Quite possible as well that you have been shifted for a disabled passenger in other seats, particularly if they are situated near the lavs. The other alternative is that a Gold has nabbed your seats. This is all speculative but, in all honesty, a seat allocation made almost a year ago is highly unlikely to be honoured with the amount of tinkering that goes on.

Anyhows, don't fret. It sometimes perturbs me quite greatly as to how emotional people get over seat allocations. No individual seat is really better than any other (excluding exits) and, unfortunately, somebody has to seat in the middle seats. However, in terms of getting an aisle/window, this is rarely a problem whether it be from OLCI or at the desk. Remember, you will get a headstart on many people who check in directly at LHR. The majority of people still don't use OLCI and this will be particularly so for JNB/CPT flights due to the high number of South African's on the flight (and thus less likely to have UK based internet access) and the fact that there will be a lot of doddery old grannies who think t'internet exists in New York or something.

thanks cosmic-toadstool - very helpful. I still can't check in this morning (go today) its just not allowing it so rather than stress out I've arranged to go earlier to local airport and check-in on desk.

I wasn't getting emotional about where the seats were I know one is much the same as others, it's the fact that they split our party having one member sit alone for this long flight - they are pensioners and this can be upsetting. But I take on-board (parden the pun) your info and hope we get lucky in getting seats where we can at least sit in twos. Thanks.

My reply is probably too late, but have you considered picking up the phone and call BA?

Due to this post I checked my seats on BA for my November Seattle-London-Cairo and back flights. I had picked one of the last three rows (the ones that have only two seats across instead of three) last May. On two of the legs,, BA had moved me to a middle seat. So, I moved myself right back.

The things that bother me are: (1) since I had picked a window seat, they should have moved me to another window seat -- there were many open; and (2) the seats I want were not marked as taken, so they are booting me from my seat in case someone else wants it in the future. I think they should wait to boot me until one of the chosen people is seated there.

Sunshine the Curmudgeon.

Oh yes, it would have been nice if they had notified me that they had changed my seat.

S the C

In general, airlines outside of US/Canada have very different attitude towards seat assignments. Plenty of top-rated airlines don't give out assigned seats for discount coach passengers - including SQ and CX. Seats on Intra-European flights are usually only assigned on day of travel.

Therefore, when one travels on a non-US airline, and especially not traveling to/from the US, one cannot assume the same kind of policy and attitude when it comes to seat assignments as they are here.

That's just the way things are outside N. America.

I guess I'd rather be told that I cannot pick a seat until day of departure because I'm in economy or not have the seat I chose be offered until day of departure then be told that BA would do its best to honor my request when clearly it is not doing its best. If I were to show up on the day of departure and found that the seats had been given to deportees or those in stretchers, I wouldn't be grumpy -- merely resigned.

Sunshine being curmudgeonly

My best seat (only just two together) on a flight was given to a dog! Yes, it was a seeing-eye dog, but I was happy to sit next to the dog owner and have the dog at our feet. Nope, the dog gets his own seat and I sit middle on a very long flight. Now how could I complain when preference was given to a blind person??