Plane seats - refused to swap

I do feel sorry for you OP, however this came about. Hopefully you can choose your seats for the return flight but if not, encourage the DC to think of it as an adventure sitting alone. Make sure they know where you and DH are sitting and that you can make eye contact with them. If you aren’t stressed about it, they won’t be. You don’t have to stay seated for the flight, you can get up and talk to them once the seatbelt sign goes off.

Once you’re in the air the cabin crew will be more able to help you find seats together, if they haven’t already on boarding.

I booked through a 3rd party (travel company) recently and you still have to check in with the airline yourself. Your DH will have been sent an email from the airline 28-30 days prior to your flight stating that check-in was open. At that stage, if you need seats together, you go on line and ‘check in’ at which point you select your tickets… and pay. Sorry, but this is still a DH issue.

If you need paired seats you do NOT leave it to 24hrs prior to departure to select your seats. Doesn’t matter whether it is BA, Easy Jet etc… check in is done by the lead passenger as you have to enter passport details and confirm whether visa are needed/obtained.

I don’t think they’re expecting anyone with children to move so their child can sit next to them. They a referring to adults without children.

@Zonder MN seem to hide any posts mentioning Exped1a so I'm guessing it's that one. I've read that you can book seats in advance through them. Personally, I only ever book directly with the airlines.

Ryanair do not let you not buy an alocatted seat if your booking with a minor on the booking. You have to pay for the seat but you can not randomly alocate a minor.
I fly with them 40 or 50 times a year on random seat alocation and it is pretty even between window, middle and aisle. But if people have bought all the windows then there is much mire chance you will not be getting one, obviously.
But if you use a 3rd party they can book you as random wirh a minor. That is tge ussue if it is Ryanair.

Id happily swap to an equivalent seat. But if ive paid for an aisle seat (becasue im claustrophobic) theres absolutely no way id swap for a middle or window seat.

Depends on your Expedia-Airline- destination combo, but we flew Easyjet this summer booked through Expedia and had no difficulty with online check in to Crete or Canary Islands.

If you book with Jet2 they have a policy where you have to sit with your children and they keep seats spare for this. I booked a last minute getaway and there were only random seats dotted around the plane left (there and back). They reassured me that we would all be sat together and we were. 8 and under always with a parent and 9 to 12 I believe it’s on the next row max distance away and any age above that, 2 rows max.

@Zonder I think the 3rd party is Expedia but according to their site, you can book seats. Never booked this way myself so I can't be sure.

Who was the flight with? I recently booked a holiday with Loveholidays, and they book your flight with Ryanair. Then you have to verify your booking with Ryanair using the reference code in your booking confirmation from Loveholidays. Then the flight is totally separate from Loveholidays, and that is where you can add luggage allowance and choose your seats and check in for your flight. I assume Expedia works the same way, and your DH didn't bother to verify the flight and that was why he couldn't check in. So what you need is the booking confirmation email. You can ask him to forward it to you, if he won't let you log in. I'm sorry it was so stressful OP, and I hope you don't have any more holidays with him again, he sounds awful. Enjoy your holiday.

When I have paid £40 for a seat I want, next to my child (who I have also paid £40 for) - then yes I do believe its my right to sit in the seat I have paid for - and no I won’t move just because someone didn’t want to pay!?

In your situation I would have sat the children together for take off and landing. During the flight I would have got my 5 year old to sit on my lap and the 8 year old on the seat.

I won't use third party sites to book flights anymore due to numerous problems in the past. Your third party confirmation number for the flights is often not the reference number that airline needs for you to select seats and check in with them. Read all your booking docs carefully and hopefully you can find the booking number that is the airlines reference number. With that you should be able to access the airline website and pay to book seats. This works for the majority airlines, not sure if it will work for the cheapest. Good luck.

But as I said upthread (down thread?) I wouldn't move because it would mean splitting up me, DH and DD (3). I've paid so neither of us have to sit with her alone, so I'm not going to move. Is that OK or should it only be childless people that have to move to (probably) a crappy middle seat? I think it's lovely you'd be prepared to move, but I don't think it's fair to judge others who won't. Everyone has their reasons, whether you think they're worthy or not 🤷‍♀️

For what it's worth, I fucking hate having to pay for something that should be included in the booking price and I think airlines which deliberately seat children away from their parents are absolute arseholes, but if you have paid to choose your seat, of course you should be allowed to sit in the seat you have chosen.

These people aren't being refunded the extra money they paid.

I would move if I hadn't paid to select my seat, or if I was being offered to swap to a better seat. But if I was in the seat I wanted, having paid extra for the privilege of choosing that seat, I wouldn't swap unless either the airline agreed to refund me the fee or the other passenger agreed to give me cash for it.

So you think people who have paid for a specific seat should move for people who haven't

This ^
could be that he booked too late and there were no seats together available?
however in this situation I would (and I did in the past) go for another flight or at least book two seats or the best seats available as the middle seat is always tricky to swap.

thats check in policy though, not pay for seats which you can do at booking time (they arent going to stop you spending more).

Tell us the airline so we can avoid it.

I'll go against the grain and say people were dicks for not swapping and more importantly an airline which seats 5 year olds away from any parent or guardian is unsafe for both emergencies and safeguarding and makes me doubt their procedures completely.

Have you rang the airline directly? If you haven't I would ring them before going to the airport.

People who need to (and pay for) certain seats for health reasons would really not appreciate your insinuation that we “prefer to sit near a lone child” if a family like this one messed up and wanted us to move.

My god. How much do the travel company who must not be named pay to have their name hidden? I was sticking up for them 😂

was The airline owned by Stelios??

if so - as check in opens 7 days in advance it was likely there were no seats.

i used to work for the company you named and it really doesn’t work that they have any way to allocate seats

This is an example of how your DH is not your partner, doesn't give an F about his kids wellbeing and treats you like you dont matter (cos he doesn't bother telling you stuff he should and leaves you to deal with tge fall out).

Seriously he would not be with me at all.

Hope your DD was OK.