Choose your seats

How soon before the flight can you choose your seats? I am flying LGW to BGI in July and the seat maps are still unavailable. I am sure you used to be able to choose quite a while in advance.

Seat requests are a complicated issue at the moment, as VS are in the process of rolling out a new system which is running late, therefore the goalposts keep moving.

Once it's fully up and running you'll be able to request seats at time of booking but it looks like that won't be until the summer so for your flight you'll be able to request seats 60 days in advance - so sometime in May.

Thanks for the info

I'm so confused. Flying to vegas on 1st May in economy extra legroom seats (2nd flight this year so sadly couldn't justify a PE). Thought I could pre allocate these seats from 1st April but apparantly that's been pushed back to June. What concerns me is in the past, even though I check in on-line the night b4 I never get seat numbers for extra legroom seats - I'm told they are allocated at the airport. I asked Virgin what happens if people get to airport check in b4 me, are offered the extra legroom seats and accept them. Will they get shown a map and offered a choice where to sit? If so then there's a chance that me and my sister might be seperated even though we paid for our seats ages ago and checked in on-line the night b4 which seems cruel. Guess that's why the system is changing. Can't get a proper reply from Virgin. My sister is scared of flying and I don't want to be seperated from her. Wish I'd just got plain economy seats and I could have chosen them and worry over

I'm so confused. Flying to vegas on 1st May in economy extra legroom seats (2nd flight this year so sadly couldn't justify a PE). Thought I could pre allocate these seats from 1st April but apparantly that's been pushed back to June. What concerns me is in the past, even though I check in on-line the night b4 I never get seat numbers for extra legroom seats - I'm told they are allocated at the airport. I asked Virgin what happens if people get to airport check in b4 me, are offered the extra legroom seats and accept them. Will they get shown a map and offered a choice where to sit? If so then there's a chance that me and my sister might be seperated even though we paid for our seats ages ago and checked in on-line the night b4 which seems cruel. Guess that's why the system is changing. Can't get a proper reply from Virgin. My sister is scared of flying and I don't want to be seperated from her. Wish I'd just got plain economy seats and I could have chosen them and worry over

Extra leg room seats will not be allocated to another pax they will show as unavailable as you will have been pre assigned the seats.
It is rare for people on the same booking to be seperated most airlines will do everything they can to avoid this.

Thanks for that. I just don't understand why, if they have been preassigned, you are not given the seat number when you do on-line check in. I can understand how exit row seats might have to be held back incase someone breaks a leg etc but not sure why extra legroom seats are classed as different to normal seats. I'll try and get there super early to check in and do some airport shopping ! First time in Vegas without my son so wil be a very different trip than usual !

Thanks for that. I just don't understand why, if they have been preassigned, you are not given the seat number when you do on-line check in. I can understand how exit row seats might have to be held back incase someone breaks a leg etc but not sure why extra legroom seats are classed as different to normal seats. I'll try and get there super early to check in and do some airport shopping ! First time in Vegas without my son so wil be a very different trip than usual !

depends on the actual plane on the day, the extra legroom seats are not in the same position on all aircraft, so you are not given a specific seat number

I just don't understand why,

It's partly because, as Penny says, they may not know the aircraft type, but also because they need to retain some flexibility for juggling at the airport to accommodate people. This is partly to make sure (precisely) that groups get seated together, but also because as the flight departure nears, people cancel, change, fail to show up, or present themselves requiring special assistance (previously unknown to the airline). Keeping back the allocations for the 'best' seats gives the airline the best shot of solving the puzzle -- and they normally do, so try not to worry.

I've had loads of trouble with this, part of the problem has been the delay to the new seat assignment system to June 25th. We fly on June 27th and one page of the website was saying we could book the seat yesterday, then another page in late April, eventually a new XL sheet was posted on the home page confirming it is now 28th April.

They really are bad at cross -company communications sometimes, but eventually they got there.

If you fly on June 27th then your online seat request should be available at T60.

People are getting confused with all the dates for the roll out, but T60 is still the over riding date (at the moment).