Is there a way around British Airways $175 seat selection fee for business class?

Just booked my flights from SIN to BRU with BA and they are charging $135 for lower deck and $175 for upper deck if you wanna pre select your seat, which i do since my partner is scared of flying and freaks out if she can't look outside (lol).

Is there a way around it? You can pick them for free 24h before departure but i'm worried they will get snapped up beforehand (Frequent flyers get to pick them for free).

Imagine if you actually forked out 6k or whatever it costs and then get stung again with seat selection, pure thievery haha

Ataraxis, is your booking an award ticket or purchased? Who did you use?

Yes, the seat selection fee for business on BA is quite outrageous. I suspect a large proportion of business flyers have frequent flyer status and so allowing them to select for free and charging others a high fee allows BA to say 'status flyers save £££' when the actual cost to the airline of a seat reservation is zero.

The good news however is that any oneworld frequent flyer status counts. If you are Qantas silver (oneworld ruby) you get free seat selection 7 days in advance, which should be time enough to get a window at least.