Not to have given up my seat on plane

Shocked that it upsets people so much that a pair travelling would book and aisle and window seat, I’ve always done this. My husband prefers window I prefer aisle and 90% of the time we’ve been lucky to have the middle aisle free which is a just a bonus in my eyes.

Clear you do judging my the post of yours I quoted. If it had not been bothering you, you would not had said that, fact!!!😂

Like so many have said: Absolutely you are not BU! Fine for her to ask, but more than fine for you to refuse. When I’ve had to sit by [YOUNG!] DCs, I’ve paid for the privilege. She should’ve paid too if it meant so much to her. Grrrr.

Yes, that’s life. If you’re a late booker those are the risks 🤷🏻‍♀️

Why not?

I’m not swapping an aisle for a middle. I would only ever swap like for like or for a better seat. More fool you if you do.

The thing is that it used to be free, or at least included in the price, when tickets were more expensive. What they’ve done is change the headline price to allow people who don’t care about seating allocation to save money.

X air return ticket is £100, free seat allocation and cabin bags
Y air return ticket is £50 but you can pay an extra £25 for your seat allocation and £25 for a cabin bag.

What @CecilyP said!

Just why be that difficult?

So what? What if every pair of travellers chooses to do that? On a first come/first serve basis, there will only be middle seats left; later bookers who actually want to sit together will be prevented from doing so. It’s thoroughly selfish behaviour. If they really didn’t want to sit next to each other and wanted specific seats, they could have at least chosen separate rows, seeing as there was no real point of them sitting in same one.

Paying for seats? They actually paid for 2 in the hope of getting the 3rd one free!

This ^
I think you should have booked together and for this you were equally unreasonable one.

How is the OP (now) rude and inconsiderate?

Or anyone who chooses and pays for any seat, so they are all rude and inconsiderate if they prefer 'X' seat and how are they entitled as well?, they have paid for a service, as seat in this case.

Or put it this way, if you paid for a say isle seat and the person in the middle wanted that seat that you have paid for and asked you to move seats, what would you say?

My (adult) DS was made to move this week on a 10 hour flight. He had booked a window seat so he could sleep undisturbed, and also because he currently has a broken collar bone. He was told at checkin that he was being moved for a mother with 2 children. Explaining his reason made no difference they withheld his boarding pass until he agreed and he ended up in an aisle seat and was repeatedly woken up by the next passengers wanting to go to the loo. He's furious.

Yes. It’s very much okay, and people are indeed free to choose to do just that. You aren’t required to like it.

But is it ok to choose and pay for the aisle and window seat on the same row? I don't think so.

Yes, it’s very much okay to sit in the seat you’ve chosen and paid for.

We don’t need to, so if we can’t, because of booking a bit late, we aren’t bothered.

As far as I can see, the only reason adults actually need to be next to someone else is if they are travelling with small children - in which case they need to book in time, and pay the extra, if necessary.

Very good point!

It’s not like the middle seat person suddenly decided that they don’t fancy their middle seat though. Then yes, they could have paid to choose their own seat. It sounds like they didn’t fancy being talked over, which is reasonable. OP says that they weren’t talking, but how did the third person then even know that they were friends.

Exactly. If you're not going to be talking to him anyway (which you shouldn't be as you'll be making the person in the middle uncomfortable) then there's no need to be in the same row.
Book separate rows and leave people who want to be next to each other able to book those seats. By booking separate rows you leave 2 lots of 2 seats free rather than 1 single.

The unreasonable party here is the airline company. No one should have to prebook tickets at an extra cost. Tickets should be more expensive to cover that so that people have the freedom and choice to pick their seats. The whole system is an utter farce.

This is perfectly fine. What I don't understand is why you need to be in the same row?

Maybe by the time the stranger booked the flight the only seats left were singles? If all couples do weird bookings like window and aisle it will only leave middle seats free even if you try and book!
You could argue that they could have booked sooner. But someone has to be last! And sometimes trips are last minute.
I once booked a last min Europe break with my husband about a month before going. Other than the very last row all seats together were booked. There was at least 10 rows with middle seats only free. I can guarantee you they weren't all single people in those rows.
We paid to book the last row together. But if we hadn't been lucky and got those seats we would have had no choice but to sit in the middle of people. Whether we paid for them or not we'd have be stuck in between people.
And on the day the flight was full. So lots of people had no choice but to sit in the middle seats.

I always want - and book - an aisle seat, less claustrophobic, plus I don’t have to climb over anyone fast asleep when I need the loo.
Dh always wants and books the window seat - we don’t care who sits between us.
I wouldn’t swap seats unless there was a real and very pressing reason.

I think we are talking about different things. I said earlier in the thread that I had a really awful flight stuck between two friends who had booked the aisle and window seat and talked over my head, and someone else said I should have paid for a seat... But I don't care what seat I'm in, it's being sat next to rude / inconsiderate people who feel entitled because "I paid for my seat" which is the issue.
If a flight is full there is always going to be someone say between you, not everyone is going to be able to pay to avoid it?!

🤣 No. It’s just ok to use what you have paid for. If you don’t think it is, then you better start giving away everything you’ve bought that someone else would like. 🤣🤣🤣