British airways seat booking

[froggyfender]

We are a family of five flying long haul in economy. All 3 children are under 12. What are the chances of BA sitting us all together? Or should we cough up the £300 to book seats?

If you are flying with kids, you can select seats for free a week before departure for BA long haul.

I flew with my 2 kids to South Africa with BA last week and this was the case. But better check with website just in case

Thanks. I can’t find where it says this on the website. Did you have to be a particular tier member of BA club?

It depends if there are seats free to put you all together. I'd be very surprised if there were. More likely one adult will be with one child and the other with the other two, possibly spread across an aisle or in adjacent rows. Alternatively one adult may be with all the kids and the other on their own. If you want to be sure that all the family are together then I would pay personally.

https://www.britishairways.com/content/information/family-travel/seating

Ba generally (I can’t promise) sit you together anyway but you can choose for free 24 hours before anyway.

Appreciate nobody can guarantee. Was just looking for other people’s experiences of what BA tend to do. If there’s a decent chance of us being sat together anyway? I’ll save my £300 each way!

Sorry, I can't find much, only this:

"We’ll do our best to seat your family together by assigning seats a few days before your flight departs. However, seat selection may be limited at that time and your seats may be split across different rows or the aisle."

which is from here: https://www.britishairways.com/content/information/seating/reserving-your-seat

My experience was that when I went to Manage my Booking a few days before the flights I could see our seats. For the outbound flight I was able to change us to a window block for free. For the return flight we were already allocated a window block.

I guess it may depend on your route whether it is likely to be an issue 😬

Thanks all. It’s just so difficult to justify £600 to book seats we’ve already paid for!!

They have to sit children with an adult, and so will book those for you for free. If you ring them in advance they will allocate the children with one adult, tell you where you’ve been allocated, and then you can pay just to book the one other adult into a seat next to you all. This is what we did last year.

you cannot book for free 7 days in advance unless you are BA Bronze status. It’s 24 hrs only. I would save your money unless you are desperate to all sit together

I'm not paying £300.

I'll take my chances.

BA won't mess you about.
X

BA did this to us when we went to Mauritius with our 8 year old. 2 seats together and the other 15 rows in front. Made us pay to sit together from then on.

Just phone up, say you are hard of hearing and need to sit by husband, and kids will be by you both too.

We paid with BA to sit together in premium and they moved us all separate. Couldn’t care less ! They were awful

Thats fine but please dont be that person who demands people move because of xxx reason. I fly a lot now and there is always one family who does this. Last one was on Sun Express and the cabin crew asked me whether I would move from my front row aisle seat to accomodate a women and her pre teen who didnt like flying.

The Mum actually started having a conversation with me about how it was a VERY special occasion and she just couldnt afford to buy the seats in advance.

Being together can mean in front of/ behind / across aisle.

They do their best but obviously can’t guarantee it.

Last time we flew long haul we got 2 pairs of seats, on the opposite side of the plane. That worked fine for us as we took a child each. If you’d be happy to be split into 2 groups I’d save your money. If you all want to sit together then pay up

We flew from UK to Orlando with BA. we didn’t pay for seats to be reserved. We flew with 2 adults and 16 year old and 12 year old. We went online when check in opened 24hours before the flight and we got seated all 4 of us in a row of 4 and same again on the way home. Full flight as well

Oh yes they will if other pasengers have paid for seats.

We just booked seats when the check in opened, and the seats were all allocated together. And DDs are 21 and 17 so they could have put us anywhere.

I'd pay it. The chances of 5 seats together still being available later may not be all that high. For long haul I wouldn't take that risk.

We are in the same position, kids aged 10 and 12.
You can go on and pick seats but not until 24hrs before so we are going to risk it!
We have decided the kids are old enough to manage if we are split and are fine with us being spilt into pairs or two kids with one adult so not paying the extra!
I would pay if it was essential we sat together.