Do you know the cost of reserving a British Airways Club World business class seat?
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One thing that often surprises people who are travelling in British Airways Club World for the first time is that seat reservations are not free at the time of booking.
British Airways is one of the few airlines that charges its Business Class passengers an additional fee to reserve a seat. It also charges for Economy and Premium Economy, of course. Only First Class is free.
The only exceptions are if you (or someone in your party) hold Executive Club Silver or Gold status or oneworld equivalent – see details here – or if you have a fully flexible ticket. Bronze cardholders can select seats for free seven days before departure. Some people also get the fee waived as part of a corporate deal with their employer.
For the rest of us, all seats are made available at no additional charge 24 hours before departure, but by this time many of the best seats have already been snapped up. In Club World, you may be stuck sharing a ‘double bed’ middle pair with a stranger.
Over the last few years, seat selection fees have gone through the roof. On an A380 flight to Dubai, there are now SIX different prices available, running from £59 to £91. This is per person, each way, meaning that a couple is facing a ludicrous £364 cost to reserve the best seats next to each other for a return flight.
I should also point out that these are Dubai prices, for a 6-7 hour flight. You will pay more on longer routes.
What does it cost to reserve a Club World seat?
Let’s use an Airbus A380 as an example. Here is the pricing for the upper and lower decks (click to enlarge) for a Dubai flight in early December.
Here is upstairs:
As you might expect, the window pairs are more expensive than those in the middle.
Here is the cheaper downstairs cabin. Again, the window seats are pricier than the middle block unless you want the two pairs at the back.
The price differential from cheapest to priciest seat is £32.
Flying the new Club Suite could save you money
There is some good news.
Seat reservations in business class are becoming less relevant now that the new Club Suite is operating more and more routes. As we covered in this article, you will currently find Club Suite on the new A350 and 787-10 fleets as well as refitted Boeing 777s.
In theory there are no bad seats with Club Suite. The current Club World layout delivers a huge variety of travel experiences since the dense layout means many people do not have direct aisle access, are facing backwards or do not have much privacy.
If you are booked on a 777 and the business class layout looks like this:
….. then you are getting Club Suite. Save your money and don’t pay to book a seat.
With Club Suite, the experience becomes more uniform in its offering. All seats have aisle access and someone in the middle block is sat totally separately to their neighbour.
You can’t easily talk to your partner even if you are sat side by side in the middle block, even with the divider down, so it doesn’t matter much if you are separated – and other passengers should have few problems moving to help you if you are. Unless you are obsessed with having a window seat, there seems little to justify paying to choose a seat when in Club Suite.
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