British Airways poor customer service

A couple of weeks ago we booked flights to California for next summer flying with British Airways. We were a bit reluctant to fly BA as it seems BA has a tendency to lose bags, go on strike, etc etc. And in fact we could have flown Air New Zealand for about the same price. But we thought we'd fly BA and do our bit for Blighty.

2 days later BA announce that it has introduced an extra charge for passengers who want to pre book their seats up to 10 days before flying. From what I can tell this charge would work out at maybe an extra £60 each.

I wrote to Willy Walsh the BA CEO to complain not thinking for a moment my complaint would be dealt with properly. Well, yesterday I received a letter from BA Customer Services which is basically a rehash of their original press release. In other words not answering my letter at all. However, the letter informs me that BA have introduced this new arrangement in response to "customer demand".

Tell me. What customer wants to pay more for something that they should be able to do anyway? BA will have had almost £2000 of my hard earned money for a year and in order for me to sit with my family on a flight I have to pay more for the privilege.

Yes customers may want to be able to select their seats more than 24 hours beforehand. But who in their right mind wants to pay a fee for doing so? No doubt some people with more money than sense.