What a complete pain this is. You book your cruise, book your hotel etc and your flights thinking you will be sitting together on the flight, after all you are travelling together. It seems these days if you wait to check in at the airport you would not get seats together and therefore your only option is to prepay for a seat. Personally, I am dead against this as you pay enough for the flight in the first place!
I am not talking about every flight though, as if you book a low cost flight such as Easy Jet or Jet 2, you would normally pay a bit extra to get seat numbers confirmed at the time of booking. Likewise, if you have booked a flight with Thomson and paid the money for the booked seat, then you can go onto your booking and book your seat or see which one has been allocated to you. I am talking about a scheduled flight such as British Airways, Emirates, Singapore Airlines etc. When you book your cruise the flights are also booked at the same time. They are then placed in a ticketing queue once you have paid for the cruise, and when ticketed we will give you a reference number which enables you to go onto the airline website and reserve your seats, which again have to be paid for.
Please do not shoot the messenger here, as we do not have any “clout” as to where the seats on the aircraft are – this is all done by the airline, all we can do is get the tickets issued, give you the reference number and then it is down to you. The problems we see everyday are where people do not get seats that they want or even do not get to sit close to other members of the party plus you have to pay quite a bit of money to get these seats in the first place!
I have read this week that British Airways have been criticised for what people are calling a “cynical ploy.” I read that recently a couple chose BA to fly with and were allocated seats on different rows even though they were travelling together. The couple then had to pay over £100 to sit close to each other (so the report stated). Single travellers have also complained that they have been allocated a middle seat although the aisle and window seats were not used. So what happens? they are then charged to move.
The BA website does say, and I quote. “To get the best choice of seats and make sure your family sits together, it’s best to reserve your seats in advance, for which you might have to pay.’ So in a nutshell people if you really want to sit next to each other, you have to pay for a seat in advance.
On a footnote, I will say that even though you do pay for your seat this is not 100% guaranteed as the aircraft type can change, or the check in staff may move you for a “reason” so although you have paid you may not necessarily get that seat anyway. I think it is time the airlines really stepped up to the mark and did something. I understand it is a business and they are out to make money, but surely once the client has paid for that ticket the seat should be issued automatically?
I would welcome your thoughts.
Till next time x