to not want to pay £100 to guarantee that our kids can sit next to us on the plane

[mumsnit]

DH wants us to pay £25 each to guarantee that we can all get seats together when we go on holiday next month. Aibu to think it's a ridiculous cost to pay out

But I have heard that one airline refused to seat a family together as they hadn't paid the premium and tried to seat a 3 year old alone on the other side of the plane from the parents. We don't go on holiday very often - especially abroad and I'm already nervous about flying so don't want this added to the stress of travelling.

WWYD/WDYD - do you pay the extra cost?

I really think the issue here is with the actual charge. Everyone seems to be up in arms over who has paid & what they're now entitled to.

10 years ago this fee would have seemed ridiculous, (because it is). It's the airlines that are at fault & the more people who say well I'm paying because I'm scared of being alone/my child being alone etc, the more it validates their fee. I Don't care where I sit on the plane but I do think it's the airlines responsibility to ensure a guardian is beside young children. Not necessarily the whole family together if there are 2 parents. It's not the child's fault that I will refuse to pay an extra £100 or whatever. I'm not saying it's the passenger who has paid either but I wouldn't ask someone to move, leave it to the air steward to sort (just would warm them that ds may need to use their sick bag too during turbulence;)

I would think if more people didn't pay & were seated away from their little ones, yes sadly it is had be more work for the stewards but they'd be more likely to complain about the situation & bring about change.

Effectively paying more just for basic safety shouldn't be a passenger choice.

Exactly Somewhere if I've simply booked to go from a to b it's totally different from a situation where I've paid to prebook and someone else hasn't yet expects me to move.

Being disabled is a protected characteristic, being a parent isn't.

Very true!

HayFeverHell if the airlines cease to impose a prebooking fee for guaranteed seats for children that cost will be passed on to all other travellers. The airlines will recoup the money somehow.

Ds talks non stop. I am sure that if he got seated away from us the passengers on the seats next to him would be performing HariKiri with the plastic cutlery or hanging themselves with the chord from the air bag about 3 hours into the flight.

Even his friends tell him to be quiet sometimes as he gives them a headache.

Well put evelynj.

That's fine with me sooty. None of us pay for exactly what we are using and not a penny more. We all effectively subsidise one another at different times.

For example, my mum just flew in to visit us. She is now disabled and needed assistance. Everyone else's ticket reflected her extra costs to the airline. I actually do think that was fair.

I am not a libertarian.

I think I am generally a kind person,and I try to be but there are limits. I am not going to effectively hand over £30 or £50 to a stranger because it's 'kind'. I rarely fly as I have a severe phobia of flying and a number of mental health issues,and it's of the utmost importance to me that I get to choose a seat I feel relatively safe in,so I'm happy to pay the airline extra. I am not happy to pay that money for someone else's benefit when they had the option of doing the same.

I would move in the event of a medical emergency,but otherwise no. I'm not budging because someone has failed to prioritise their child's needs,as I have prioritised my needs.

The PA responses from parents always get me - "sick bag", "talks non-stop" etc... that is fine,

be aware I may watch slasher movies, or regale them with ghost stories in return - or is it only the kids that are allowed to be horrible to sit next to?

See, 10/15 years ago when I was regularly flying alone when the now DH was working overseas, it wouldn't bother me to move as long as it was early enough before the flight took off (I'm a very nervous flyer, and need to have time to get settled and 'zone out' on a flight to stop me making a scene at take off). But then, I wouldn't have bothered to pay for garenteed seating as a) I genuinely didn't care where I sat as long as I got in my seat early enough and b) they didn't used to charge for seats back then, but 15 years on, my 'headline' ticket prices are considerably lower, so air travel is a lot cheaper.

Travelling in term time to a location that is not just aimed at family holidays, you'll probably get a lot of single or couple travellers who don't mind moving and will check in relatively late (so you might get the seats together without having to make anyone move), travelling in the school summer holidays to a family holiday desitination, you run the risk that the bulk of the other passangers also have DCs with them - in that case then no, they aren't going to want to move away from their DCs.

Pay - don't think of it as an extra, think of it as "part of the holiday cost when you have DCs, like having to pay for a bigger hire car/more bedrooms" or "this is what holidays would cost if I'd had my DCs 10 years earlier"

Although this always surprises me that someone will pay £3k for a family holiday, but resists paying an extra £100 for something that will make the holiday much more pleasant for all concerned. If you have that sort of family holiday budget, factor in the allocated seating as a cost of making the holiday nice for everyone.

People who have paid to sit together rarely have spent that extra £50 for a giggle, they will have their reasons, and they aren't any less valid than yours. In school holiday times, you do risk being on a whole flight of people who have paid already, those are less likely to move than the people who've done the same as you and just chanced it.

Can I just say re the 'speedy boarding weirdos'
We often pay for speedy boarding because DS2 has autism and it means if he is having a bad day I can get him on and settled first without having to explain to anyone or risk '(as has happened recently to other families) getting into a fraught 'fitness to fly' discussion with airline staff.

We pick our seats. Get on when we want. We can afford it. What's the problem?

And if someone asks us to move - as happened 3 weeks ago - the answer will be no because he needs a window seat and he needs to know exactly where we are all sitting.

The woman who asked us to move was fucking rude which made me even happier to say no.

" People who have paid to sit together rarely have spent that extra £50 for a giggle, they will have their reasons, and they aren't any less valid than yours. In school holiday times, you do risk being on a whole flight of people who have paid already, those are less likely to move than the people who've done the same as you and just chanced it."

Yes. What Dinosaur said.

For our honeymoon, we could pick all our seats on United at time of booking apart from the ones on the last short flight to Shannon, with no option to select seats for that flight until we checked in at San Francisco to fly back. We ended up separated by four rows and an aisle... and the seat beside each of us ended up being empty so we had been basically at the mercy of a cranky gowl in SFO. They weren't the only US airline that separated us either - Allegiant did exactly the same thing, but they are worse nickel-and-dimers than Ryanair so I wasn't surprised.

I am more than happy for the cost of my seat to reflect the cost of offering accessible services to those with disabilities. I'm not happy to subsidise guaranteed seats for children when the add on service is currently payable by those who want to use it. If I pay a low base fare and can choose specific seating and hold luggage I don't see why guaranteed seating for children differs. If you book a family holiday and want that guarantee pay for it.

There was a thread on here last year, the OP had pre-booked and paid a premium for the extra leg room seats for her and her DH. A woman asked if they would move so she could sit next to her children (older teens), OP said no, the woman asked the stewardess to ask them to move which she did! OP again said no, if she wanted to sit with her kids she should've booked the seats together. Woman kicked up a right fuss, OP asked why she felt she was entitled to the extra leg room seats, if they wanted to sit together, why couldn't they ask someone in other seats? Woman again kicked up a fuss and the stewardess offered to refund the money if the OP moved.

Can't remember the outcome, whether the woman was re-seated, but the OP refused to move. I would have done the exact same thing and not moved either

The irony of this is, is that you have already paid for your seats. You don't pay & stand up for the flight, you pay for seats. Making you pay twice is greed.

Somewhere go ahead if you can get a word in edge ways. Ds was in a horror movie and will probably tell you how they pumped the blood from his wrists when he slashed them.

Yes you have paid for a seat,but,generally speaking,you haven't paid for a specific seat,so if you want allocated seats then that usually costs extra.

oliversmummy is it weird to say I kind of want to sit with your son now? He sounds hilarious.

One thing that really baffles me is that the current state of affairs means you can pay for a seat and be guaranteed it, but you can't guarantee you won't be sitting in the middle of a couple of unaccompanied, untended three year olds whilst in said seat. If you refused to move, the parents refused to pay and the airlines refused to move the DC, which so far as I can tell all three parties would be quite within their rights to do, the outcome would be you having to put up with other people's toddlers for several hours. That's right, isn't it?

Many years ago I was flying to a North African destination. We had to change flights at one point. I was a woman travelling with two under 10s, the flight was almost all Arab speaking travellers but there was a couple of groups of businessmen, one English and one American group. Check in for our connection was a bun fight and I couldn't get near the counter. Was chatting to some of the businessmen as we all kept getting pushed back, Arabs who were travelling seemed to have a dim view of idiots who tried to queue. Anyway these guys had a whip round and "paid" an airport official to whisk them through check in. They all just walked off and left me with two distressed children. It wasn't even as if I refused to contribute, they never asked, but even if I hadn't had the cash don't you think the airport guy would have let us tag on if they asked. I realised at that point that the old "women and children first" philosophy was long gone. They were all very well spoken, smartly dressed men and I thought they might have had a bit of sympathy leaving me as the only non Arab woman, in fact the only woman without a male companion, standing in a foreign airport.

In my case a nice policeman took pity on us and pushed through the stampede to get us on. I found out the crowd were mainly people who had been bumped from a previous flight and were trying to get transferred to my flight but were causing chaos by preventing people from checking in. I didn't fly again for a while.

I would move to let someone sit with a young child even if I had paid the £25, I wouldn't pay the £25 in fact, my children are grown up and we don't need to sit together.

My answer for kids who haven't been taught it's rude to regale disinterested people in their conversations are like Oliversmumsarmy's DS is to put headphones in and ignore.

OP I haven't RTFT but yes I do pay, every year for all four of them. Yes it's unfair but you need to be beside them. DH wonders if they are misbehaving can you pay to be seated away from them

In an emergency you can't rely on strangers to help your children.

People who have paid to sit together rarely have spent that extra £50 for a giggle, they will have their reasons, and they aren't any less valid than yours.

Yes, this absolutely. By the time I have avoided bassinet seats (screaming babies, stinky nappies), the loos (stinky and people queueing next to your seat), the back of the plane (no food left and - on one occasion - a frenetic nocturnal masturbator) and the wings (crap view) there are actually only about 3 acceptable rows on the aircraft and I am VERY happy to pay for them And no, I am not moving for anyone who is too tight to pay to book ahead. Or their kids.

I have seens lots of these discussions about seating first-hand - I fly a lot with work, usually alone and as a lone female I feel that I am more likely to be targeted as a candidate for being moved for a family. I always refuse and no tantrum has so far penetrated my Xanax and gin reverie.

IME parents are always the passengers with the worst manners on any flight (after drunk men, admittedly). I came back from the loo once to find my neighbour changing her child's stinky nappy on my seat without a muslin or towel or anything. The used pooey baby wipes were lying on my chair. I recoiled in horror and complained - was lucky enough to get bumped to first, so she did me a favour really!

OP - seriously, pay up or suck it up

the outcome would be you having to put up with other people's toddlers for several hours. That's right, isn't it

yes that is entirely right. It also means other people's toddlers having to put up with you... "oooooh a sick buddy - you hold my hair I'll hold yours", "shall we watch Ted together, must be a nice film about teddy bears", "I swear a bit after 4 rum and blacks, you don't mind a bit of swearing do you?"

but then again, you wouldn't have one either side of you - who in their right mind would PAY for a middle seat?