Plane seats - refused to swap

My OH is similar in that he's like I don't even care about seats. I'm like well you will when the kids start kicking off if they aren't sat with us and it ruins the beginning of the holiday. Anyway I always do the bookings and over ruled him and paid to prebook the seats.

Op you pay to select seats at point of purchase, whether on purpose or by mistake your husband didn’t do this , it is difficult to do it by mistake. You then can try to check in on line 24 hours before hand and see if you can get any together, you pick from what’s left, which is often very little if any. That’s why no one else moved, not because they checked in, because they paid and they knew you hadn’t. Your husband was unfazed as he already knew.

Are you sure that on this occasion he didn't decide to see what would happen if he didn't pay for seat selection?

FAFO?

Say to your DH you want to go online together to see if you can rebook seats for the return home.

to answer your question as I don’t think anyone has, Expedia is not the problem. All airline bookings have an alpha numeric code associated with them (something like GHO1CP). You should be able to go to the airline’s website, go to something like ‘find my booking’, use your surname and the code and your booking will come up. It will then say when you can check in etc and perhaps offer to prebook seats.
if your husband won’t give you the booking code, then that is serious problem. I cannot understand anyone being married to someone like that. I usually do all of our holiday bookings and I automatically forward them to my husband so that he has the information too.

This! Book your own flights home OP and get away from him. Seats are the least of your worries

Ps I’m really sorry you are a SA survivor, makes me even more upset that you are with such a horrible man.

In fairness to DH, I'm not sure - have never booked on Expedia but I'm sure many others will know - if the "Select Seats" option is available on Expedia.

I know with most 3rd party bookings that you need to acquire the airline locator - which is generally issued once the airfare is paid in full - and then use same locator to bring up the flights and select seats/other extras etc. directly on the airline website.

I mean in future. This time she needs to demand holiday details and not move until she gets them.

Your husband is horrible.
If I were you I would book another flight home without him and pay for you and your children to sit together.

I’m stuck on you describing your husband as “old fashioned”. It’s a lot more than “old-fashioned”… My grandfathers were both born in 1925 and let my respective grandmothers handle travel bookings (and pretty much anything else!) if they wanted to. Do you belong to a particularly strict religious sect? Have you time travelled from the 1860s? I shudder to think how else you are controlled if this is just one example.

you should've paid to book specific seats. You can't throw a hissy fit and expect people to move.

You need to pay to reserve your seats if it’s a budget airline (especially Ryan air), alternatively you run the risk of a repeat, most airlines will at least try to seat you together if you log in as soon as check in opens and I’ve never been seated more than across the aisle myself, Ryan air deliberately separates people

It wasn’t an ‘error on the computer’. It was your husband being tight or stupid or both (or worse even, deliberately creating an event that will make you feel distressed and helpless?). You want to sit next to your kids? You pay. Simple. Yes it’s annoying, but it really is that simple.

I think the ‘error’ might be that there were no seats together left to seat the children because everyone else had paid in advance hence it would not let him book them. He might have just not realised this issue as opposed to being deliberately cheapskate if it’s always worked out (maybe at less peak times) in the past or with more upmarket airlines.

It sounds like the only seats available at this point were restricted seats - such as emergency exits. Either that, or there were no pairs of seats together.

Christ there are some inane replies to this thread.

I imagine the issue was that the online checkin didn't allow the kids to be placed alone so it wouldn't work. So he is probably telling the truth on this.

That said, instead of looking for validation, do listen to what pp's are saying. Sounds like almost everyone on the flight pre-paid for seats, which your dh clearly didn't do. This may already be problematic as the return flight is already likely to be heavily pre-booked. Log on to expedia, see if u can pay for seats now. If not, u will need to contact the airline to see if they can help. Next time insist that seats are paid for.

But by that time there may well have been no seats left together anyway if other people had booked them before you.

It wasn’t a computer error at all. Your husband is a total dick who should have sorted this weeks ago.

OP what people are trying to get across is that 24 hours at check in is too late. We paid extra and booked the seats for our holiday this summer 11 months in advance. People used to give up seats for families but when you've paid an extortionate amount to reserve your seat (and may have gone without to afford it) you aren't inclined to give it up for people that you think are trying to cut costs. He needs to go into the booking and either try and get the seats together and pay for it or admit he screwed up!

If your DH doesn't trust you to book a holiday you have far bigger problems than seats on a flight!

Book the holidays yourself
you seem to be more aware of safeguarding

But he did skimp on paying for selected seating - this is usually paid for at the time of booking and he chose to not pay. Also, you knew you didn’t have allocated seating and didn’t tell him to sort it well beforehand.

Surely they could have behaved themselves for the duration of the flight?

Refuse to fly with him again unless you do the booking in future and pay for your seats at the point of booking.

For the return flight insist on having the details now so that you can try and book seats today for your return leg.

Which airline is it? There's thousands of Mumsnetters one of them will have doubtless booked the same airline through expedia and know what to do.