That last four times I have flown overseas with British Airways I was told I could not book my seat at the time I purchased the ticket. Me being me I wrote to everyone in BA who was silly enough to have an email address or fax number posted and after some time I finally heard from someone. They told me that they only pre-book one-third of the flight and all others are assigned at check in. Since my wife and I wanted to be sure to get good seats we arrived at the Toronto check in 3 hours prior to the flight. We were there before the BA staff in fact. They proceeded to tell us that they would be unable to put us together and give us a window/middle seat. Apparently there were very few seats not reserved. I strongly suggested she find something as I was armed with an email about the non-reserving policy and behold we were accommodated. I guess we made the silly mistake of booking directly with BA and not with a travel agent who would state our case. You would think they would encourage travellers to book directly with them?!

The next time I flew it was the same bureaucracy. Fortunately this time I already had the email addresses and fax numbers to harass BA over their policy (or should I say non-policy). I was accommodated yet again after half a dozen or so requests. Again this ticket was booked sirectly with BA. We are not talking som consolidator here.

I have only had this seating problem with BA and I flew over 100 times in the last year with a number of different airlines.

My 2 cents! Jude