Thomas cook. Chances of us sitting together on flight?

[Helpies]

DH and I. 4 sprogs. 2 over 12. 2 under 12. (all over 7)

Keep being told by family not to waste £120 on prebooked flights (money is super tight) as everyone else has always been seated together.
They go away regularly and have never been split.
It's our first time and kids are nervous.

Would you pay?

Tapas so far I've been extremely impressed with jet 2. I'm hoping they live up to their service so far. I wouldn't usually book with them due to my location and the airports they use. But I would always drive an extra hour to get a guaranteed standard of service. They also offered me free pre boarding (except prefers to be on last!) and explained the sunflower lanyard scheme. They even offered me resort check in for flight home even though my flight is outside the time by 10 minutes if that helped.
The only other company who were like this were Monarch. Shame they ended up going the way they did.

I don’t know why I even commented, I haven’t flown for years!

My kids are now of the age I’d be quite pleased to get shot of them for a couple of hours, they’re pains in the arse

It’s ridiculous referring to “allocated seating” as an “extra” though.

Airlines should not be allowed to do this. Or at least discouraged through higher taxation if they do.

Always on these threads it's 'they used to sit people together'. But they didn't. Those who got to the airport first got put together. Those who arrived later got split up. Happened to my parents when both DB and I were under 10. I was only discharged from the hospital to fly home a few hours before the flight. The seats left were two in the middle, one at front, one at back. Luckily the single traveler next to the pair of seats was happy to swap with my brother.

My DDs flew last week with their Grandparents and it was two pairs of seats a few rows apart. Do you want to be all together or in pairs in different parts of plane?

I flew long haul with Thomas Cook last year and was told by the booking agent that prebooking was just to give people the chance to have their preferred seat, and that if we didn't care where we sat we would probably be seated together if we were on the same booking.

FWIW, I've also been told that more and more people are prebooking and choosing their seats because they are anxious about being separated, meaning the airline is left with a lot of single or odd seats to allocate. If everyone stopped panicking it would probably sort itself out.

We didn’t pay. My daughters sat together behind their dad - window and middle- and I was across the aisle. My girls are 12 and 15 so they were ok.

So those that bagged and paid for the seats weren’t impressed with a hysterical child?

Nobody had paid for the seats, it was over a decade ago. A small handful of people had done priority boarding but I'm fairly sure they were sat at the front not right down the back.

I guess the 2 teenage boys sat next to the 7yo weren't impressed but neither volunteered to swap with the parent.

They need to find a way out of this £25 flight but £100 for extras stuff. Start marketing flights at £125 and worth that and that that's value for money.

That's daft. Then those who don't care about extras and want the bargain lose out.

My friend has just gone away with her boyfriend on a Thomas Cook flight and they did not pay to sit together - one was sat at the front and one was sat at the back. I'm sure they do this deliberately to encourage you to pay the extra next time!

It isn’t always about being cheap and not wanting to pay.. we (2 adults and 2 young kids) are about to fly and have 4 separate seats all with several rows in between us and we actually PAID for this shoddy selection.. we checked in on the first possible day but this was all that was left and the best possible scenario. It’s a ten hour flight. My little one needs help non stop and the older one can feed herself etc but will be shy and nervous. I’ll be squatting in the aisle next to them all the time.. I don’t know.. It’s giving me holiday stress. So yes (to those who said those ppl that ask others to swap are arse holes) we will go early and politely ask at the desk first.. if no luck we will also ask passengers to swap (maybe offer to compensate their seat selection fee..?) even though we also paid about 35£ per ‘chosen’ seat already. This system is just so wrong. I hate being centre of attention and asking favours but what is a parent to do in this situation? Also, how awful for those others to be stuck with someone else’s child. Wrong on so many levels. I don’t think we are to blame here. We tried on day one and paid to select.. it was all we could choose. It’s just wrong as just because of the dob on booking the youngest at least should be close to one of us. But I have investigated and aviation guidelines are apparently just that, guidelines. It’s stressful enough without having to ask favours and cross fingers..

Holy thread revival Batman!

Thomas Cook has gone bust since this thread was started. I don't understand why you paid £35 each for random seats you didn't want. Why didn't you just take the random seats that would be allocated on arrival?

Ha indeed a revival. I was Seriously up at night stressing about this. Our flight isThomson not Thomas Cook but story is the same and name doesn’t matter. We paid to at least prevent being separated even further; even though it is already pretty bad there could also be 15 rows in between instead of 2/3. quite funny that you say that about the random seats though. Obviously you pay to try and sit together or in our case when we saw remaining options, to prevent worse.. and if you do that certain people will tell you that it’s all your own fault you aren’t together with your young children bc you refuse to pay for the privilege. Anyway, I fear there’s not trick around this and we’ll just have to pray for a Kind person (or two..:() to swap with us so the little ones aren’t alone.