We've got economy seats booked on British Airways, LA to Jo-burg and Cape Town back to LA. We paid a very reasonable price for the tickets but could not afford to upgrade for more comfort (crazy prices, no status). Since this is quite a long journey for us, I rooted around and confirmed with BA that you can book an additional seat so that you can spread out a bit.

Problem is, I'm having a heck of a time actually booking such a seat! I first requested it in mid-March and, 10 calls to Customer Service later, I have not secured it. I've received every possible explanation, but it's clear that the booking process is not straightforward - neither for the consumer nor the agent. The BA agents are infallibly polite and eager to help, but after being told 10 times to "call back in 48 hours," I am losing patience. (I know, what took me so long?) I've also written to BA's SVP of Customer Relations with a detailed contact history and have not received any acknowledgment.

Has anyone out there ever done this successfully? If so, any tips? Also, assuming I am eventually successful, did you experience any difficulties holding onto the extra seat once on board? It's not yet clear to me what paperwork I'd be provided.

Any advice/insights will be appreciated!

Book a business class seat.

It looks like you've been doing all that can be done to book a comfort seat next to your current seat. Have you been calling their 1-800-247-9297 number? You've already got a lot of time involved in this but I'd suggest you HUCA (Hang Up, Call Again). Sit with a cup of tea and a book for while you are on hold, until you find an agent who knows how to do this.

I did a search of FlyerTalk and came up with these threads:
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...=searchResults
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ort-seats.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...me-person.html

Not entirely sure you can book an extra seat in the same name. Even if you did manage to do it, the chances are some check in clerk would seat someone genre anyway.

With BA you can pay to choose your seat in advance and, on most plane configurations, there are usually some seats often at the back or upper deck on the new A380 which are two seats rather than three or four. Far cheaper to do that than buy an extra seat. Also, premium economy for two seats usually comes in at a or below the cost of three in economy.

I fly BA a couple of times a year and most times, on booking a long haul economy seat, I usually get an email offering an upgrade to premium economy at around 25% of the cost of the economy fare - a prettgood deal and much better than just having an empty seat next to you.

Thanks, all - appreciate the responses. Latest is that they said the extra seat has been reserved, took my credit card details, and in the 4 days since it hasn't been charged. Maybe this is fate telling me this is indeed a fool's errand!

Post-script on this: It took me 2 months of phone calls and emails, but I finally secured the additional seat 2 days before check-in. British Airways should be ashamed for what they put me through, but - despite the incredible hassle - it was wonderful to have that bit of extra space. Ultimately they charged me the price of the original fare less tax ($657) so it was significantly less than I would've paid to upgrade to Premium Economy (+$6500/pp). The one hitch... on 3 of the 4 legs, we were on an Airbus A380 where the armrests only went up partway. It was still enough to allow us better sleep positions, but it would've been decent for the BA reps to disclose that information.

Thank you for coming back and updating us on the outcome, and the way it worked on the flights. Did you experience any difficulty holding onto the extra seat once on board?