We travelled to Hong Kong with British Airways in January. For medical reasons my wife has to have an aisle seat. In order to ensure that she had one, we paid extra to reserve our seats in Economy. When we checked in online the night before our flight we were offered an upgrade to Economy Plus for a reasonable price. We accepted the offer and paid the extra by debit card. However, it was only then that the loation of the seats were revealed and they did not include an aisle seat. We tried to reverse the process, i.e. to return to our original seats, but the website would not allow it. We could not contact anyone at BA that evening (Friday) and my wife spent a sleepless night worrying about it. She phoned BA first thing in the morning and was told that it would be sorted out when we arrived at the airport and, in the meantime, a note would be put on the system. I also e-mailed BA Customer Relations to complain about the online process.
On our arrival at Heathrow we had to explain our problem at check-in because, despite the promise earlier in the day, no note had been put on the system. We said that we could not fly unless my wife had an aisle seat. We were encouraged to check-in anyway as efforts would be made to accommodate our request. I suggested that it might not be a good idea to load our bags immediately in case they couldn't sort it out. To cut a long story short, eventually all the passengers were boarded except us, and we then realised that they had been trying to find us an aisle seat in Economy Plus. We told them that an aisle seat anywhere on the aircraft was all that we wanted and a seat was soon found. We twice asked if our bags would be loaded and we were twice told that they would be. The aircraft was at the stand for 40 minutes after we boarded and so there was plenty time to load our luggage. However, on arrival at Hong Kong we were informed that our bags had not travelled with us and would be coming the next day. My wife had been ill on the flight, probably because of the stress she had felt, and needed a change of clothes. Thankfully, the hotel was able to provide emergency clothing. The service at the Hong Kong end, at the airport and the hotel, was fantastic.
On our return, I pursued my complaint and asked for a refund of the the extra that we had paid for the upgrade. I was not very impressed with the complaints process and was considering taking the matter to court when they finally refunded our money, three months and one week after we should have had it. At no time have we had any assurance that BA have changed their online check-in process so that the location of the seats (window, aisle, etc) on offering an upgrade are disclosed before they take payment. So, if you can only travel in an aisle seat, beware of the offer of an upgrade from British Airways. After our experience with them we will never fly long haul with BA again.