Does BA Charge For Seat Selection?

It’s important to consider any seat selection fees you may be charged when booking flights. This is particularly important if you want to ensure your group or family sits together as seat selection fees can easily add £100s of pounds to your total bill. Does BA charge for seat selection? Unfortunately, like most other airlines BA charges for advance seat selection unless you are willing to wait until check-in to reserve your seat.

What does BA Charge For Seat Selection?

Seat selection is free 24h from departure with check-in unless you are on a hand baggage only fare, where you will be allocated a seat at random if you have no BA status. BA charge seat selection fees in ALL booking classes other than First Class. That means Economy, Premium Economy and Business Class seat selection all attract a reservation fee!

The cost varies depending on your class of travel, destination and whether you choose a seat with an extra benefit e.g. extra legroom on an emergency exit row. Here are some example prices taken from the British Airways website…

Euro Traveller (short haul economy) – from £7

Word Traveller (long haul economy) – from £20, twin seats from £30 & exit row seats from £50

World Traveller Plus (long haul premium economy) – from £18 & exit row seats from £50

Club Europe (short haul business class) – from £20

Club World (long haul business class) – from £55

First Class – seat selection is always free at time of booking

The key thing to note is ALL these prices are from depending on the route and other factors and are also based on a single flight for one person. You could easily end up paying a lot more! You can check the cost by making a dummy booking, after you select the passengers you are asked if you want to select seats. Here you can view the costs and then exit the checkout process. If you already have a booking you can check by going to reserve a seat from the ‘manage my booking’ section of the British Airways website.

What If I Hold BA Status?

If you hold British Airways Executive club status you may be able to avoid these fees. Bronze members can select seats for free seven days before departure whereas Silver & Gold members can select seats for free at the time of booking. You can read more about Executive club status and the different benefits here – https://pointsuncovered.com/british-airways/what-ba-executive-club-tiers-are-there/

Is there any other way to avoid paying seat selection fees?

Unfortunately not, unless you are willing to wait to check-in 24 hours before your flight. What you can do is periodically check how many seats have been reserved already on your flight. You do this by going into Manage your booking on the BA website and pretending you are going to purchase a seat reservation. Here you can see how many seats are still available. If it’s wide open you may fancy your chances at check-in to get the seats you want together, if not you may consider purchasing.

Any other exceptions?

Families receive free seat selection at booking when travelling with a lap child, children are also guaranteed a seat next to an adult but families may not be seated together.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, unless you are travelling First Class or have BA status you will need to pay to secure seats in advance. We dislike the practice of having to pay to guarantee sitting with your friends/family but as it’s a huge cash cow we don’t see it ending any time soon! What you can do is periodically check the flight load as we mentioned above to reduce your chances of needing to pay.

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