that airlines charge you extra to sit together!?!?

[Dollygirl2008]

I mean, after a totally shitty year, I have scraped the money together to take my DC away for a weeks holiday to Menorca- possible the last foreign holiday we will have for a long time. And now, the sodding, well reputable tour operator want more money for us to sit together!?!? I mean, do pepper early do this!? Are they really going to split us up (DC is 7)??

Interested in others views or experience, thanks

And I was sat next to an unaccompanied 7 and 8 year old while their parents were in business class. I refused to do anything except open a drink for the 7 year old. Not my problem if the parents did not want to pay the money to have their own children sitting next to them.

Well I am bringing a 4,6 and 8 year old on holiday and flying business with them. I will not pay the £700 quid they are asking to allocate seats. if they don't seat us together on the 12 hour flight i look forward to the commotion from people in business class having paid thousands for their tickets being stuck with stranded children. The entire plane ain't going to be happy.

It's one of the joys of low cost airlines - and I'm not being facetious saying that - that they can provide service to a wide range of budgets

I've recently booked a flight with Ryanair that could have cost me €80 per person. I spent €197 per person. Why? So I could have 2 suitcases in addition to the hand luggage, pre booked seats, priority boarding, and refundable tickets in case my leave gets cancelled which often happens. I also intend to spend a fair few euros on the plane on wine and one of their just about edible lasagnes. I'm not pissed off that someone could book it cheaper, I'm happy that I've booked what bits I want to. If I couldn't afford it I wouldn't do it.

Same as if It was a booking for a family - would you want to automatically have 23kg of baggage included for all passengers when in reality you might need 1 or 2 cases? You can therefore do it much cheaper buy picking only the elements you want. If you need seats together, you pay for them. others who don't care, pay less. Simple.

If it's Thompson then YES they do split you up if you haven't pre booked!! We went to lapland with them at Christmas and flight was nearly all family groups and lots, including ourselves, were split up. What was crazy was that with a little bit of shuffling all groups could have been sat together but it felt like they didn't want you to as you hadn't paid for it!! Enjoy you holiday regardless 🌞

I would chance it. Check in online if that's an option as soon as check in opens.

We'll have to pay £200 as a family of four to sit together on a Virgin Atlantic flight to and from LA. Don't really want to have to shell out that much but had a bit of a strange chap sitting next to me when I flew solo to New York on one occasion so ideally want to be seated next to someone I know, and while my kids are in their teens my one son is quite shy with strangers and it'd be an uncomfortably long flight for him if we were all seated apart.

I always pre pay for seats next to DH as I'm scared of flying.

We flew Ryanair to Majorca two years ago and pre-booked seats. We were still asked to move for families to sit together. On the way out we were moved so we were on either side of the aisle so technically still together.

However on the way home we were asked to move the steward walked off as we were protesting that we had paid to sit next to each other and were being separated. We then got a load of abuse off this mother about the fact that we wouldn't move. She was so rude to us and caused a right scene.

Moral off this story on Ryanair flights we now book seats on the emergency exit aisle!

Call me old fashioned, but I actually think that airlines shouldn't allow children to sit in economy whilst the parents languish in business. Is it just me? I actually think thats awful!!!!!

Dollygirl

Depends how old they are.

My Ex wife did this with her 'new man' (18 years older than me ) and I got her to promise that she would at least sit with them for take off and landing. Whether she did or not I don't know without putting the kids on the spot.

We always book our seats.. Just part of the cost we add in to a holiday as we want to sit together.

Last flight we were on a family got split and they tried to kick off about it as no one would move but why should anyone who's paid offer up their seat? Especially on a 7 hour flight?

If you have paid to choose - or just checked in early - the correct answer to being asked to move to accommodate a family is No. Just plain No. Don't explain and don't apologise. Just say No.

Unless you are being offered an upgrade!

They still charge to pick seats when you have paid business class fares for a whole family?!

My Ex wife did this with her 'new man' (18 years older than me grin) and I got her to promise that she would at least sit with them for take off and landing. Whether she did or not I don't know without putting the kids on the spot

Sorry, Blindsider but most of the time airlines are quite strict about everyone sitting in their correct seat during take off and landing. Something to do with 'balance'. In the rare occasion that I have travelled on a plane with lots of empty seats and people have wanted to swap around so they have more room, they haven't been allowed to while the seatbelt signs are on.

In the even rarer occasion where I've travelled on very small planes that haven't been full, the crew visually look at the passengers and if there's a noticable difference in size/weight, they will move people around, eg, if there were a lot of very heavy people on one side and a lot of light people/children at the other, or similarly unbalanced between the front and the back.

It's hardly disgusting! You gets what you pay for!

I used to pay more for flights when I used to go to a friend's place in the Med 30 years ago. Flights then were eyewateringly expensive, I think everyone has forgotten how much. Included was baggage, a meal, the lot. It's far better to pick and choose what you want to spend your money on now. Food, no thanks. Hold baggage, no thanks. Seat, yes please. It's not extortion, it is giving the customer choice.

When you book you are entitled to a seat. However, you are not entitled to dictate where that seat will be without paying.

*You get this on trains too. I book a table seat then a family want me to move so they can sit together because they "need" to.

No, they don't. They may need double seats, so each child us with an adult, depending on the age of the child, and they need to start looking sharpish - but don't tell people who booked the table that they must move.*

A group of business women tried this with me on a train journey. I had booked the seat I wanted - front facing, table, power socket etc. The rest of the table happened to be unbooked for the rest of the journey.

Lead woman asked me if I could move as they needed to have a business meeting - I said "I'm sorry, this is my seat, but there's plenty of room for you there's three other seats"

To which she replied "but you might hear something confidential" I guffawed.

To the OP - yes I would pay and always do with my DD. I am planning a trip with my sister and we will also pay for seats because I want to be sitting with her - I'm a nervous flyer and don't want to sit with strangers. So if someone asked me to move, the answer would be no I'm afraid.

This just happened to me. Booked for my 2 children (8 and 3) and myself to fly from Australia to the UK by BA. Read the T&C re. seat allocation, families will be seated together, allocation 5d prior to travel. So checked via My Booking on the BA website, and yes, we were sort of together - they were in one row, and I was in the row behind. A block, yes. But not ACTUALLY together, in any way in which it mattered.

Of course I could have waited for online check in to open, 24h prior to flying - but then, given the vagaries of the fucking BA website, and its propensity for crashing, this would have been extremely stressful and probably ended up with us not sitting together, for 22 fucking hours.

SO I felt forced into paying the extra money to get seats together. It's not as if the plane was already blocked out - ALL the rows in the last section of the plane, bar the exit seats (which we're not allowed anyway) and the bulkhead seats (which are used for families with under 2s) were available, at a cost. So actually, BA could have chosen to put is in a window row of 3 - but they didn't.

Luckily, they did see sense on the way back, so I only had to pay in one direction, thank goodness! But I would have paid it again if they'd separated me from the DC again. 22h with 2 small DC by oneself is quite stressful enough, without being out of arm's reach of them!

A child might be vulnerable sitting alone next to a stranger. A friend if mine's daughter was sexually by someone sitting next to her on a bus. I don't think the airline should be splitting up children from parents. It's just a way got them to make money - and to make plane tickets initially seem better value in order to reel you in.

Barbaraofseville

That's not my experience.

Recently I flew Ryanair in October on a busy flight to Barcelona. There were three of us. I didn't book seats, and I didn't even check in until the day before the flight - but we were all seated together both ways. Similar experience with easyjet two years earlier.

Airlines don't know the age of people booking tickets. They aren't 'splitting up children from parents.' Parents who don't perform due diligence and pay the necessary fees for seat choice are the ones doing the splitting.

As someone above pointed out, air travel is extremely cheap now, adjusted for inflation, compared to what it was a generation ago and even further back. Many more people are mobile than used to be. My grandma lived to be 94 and didn't make her one and only flight until she was in her 80s, for example, to attend my sister's wedding. And she and gramp were solidly middle-class comfortable.

The price we all pay for more broad access to air travel via cheaper fares is the loss of what were standard amenities when it would have cost, say, $1,500 to fly from London to Paris. Now it's cheap and a la carte - like the difference between Rules and McDonald's.

I agree with mard and roussette - flights on many airlines and routes are now much cheaper than they were even 10 years ago. Not everyone needs a particular seat, or 23kg of luggage, or an in-flight meal. I'd rather have a low base price, pay for a seat (the most I've paid is £12 for an extra legroom seat, so I'm shocked at some of the amounts PP have paid), and bring along my own drinks and snacks.

I'm sorry, lealeander but yes, they do know to an extent. They know if the children are under 2, and if they are between 2 and 12, as the ticket prices are based on this.

what seat I sit on has any bearing whatsoever as to the quality of my holiday

It does for me. Being next to the window and being able to look down on the world or a fluffy bed of clouds massively improves the quality of the flight for me. Same with buses and trains (and goodness knows my patience has been tested on both those today.) It means I can enjoy the travelling, not just the destination.

You don't get something for nothing. If you are prepared to take the risk to not sit with your children, that's your business.

When I used to take my DCs abroad, I paid more than now. Included in that price was meals for all of us, allocated seating together, suitcases for all of us, whether we wanted it or not. Why can't people realise now that buying your seat is part of the cost of flying? Same as baggage - you possibly pay to take a suitcase in the hold, what's different? I don't understand the outrage at having to pay for seats. Or not paying for them (and then expecting those that have paid, to move for you). I appreciate most on here wouldn't be so ridiculous but instead you are kicking out against the airlines who have cheaper air travel than they did decades ago. I just don't get it.

Thumb - True. But there is a big difference between a 3 year old and an 11 year old. An 11 year old is perfectly capable of sitting alone. They may not want to, but they are capable of it. A 3 year old is not.

cleaty - I entirely agree with that. Hence my having to pay an extra load of money to sit with mine.