Aibu re booking sets on the plane

[Yeaididthat]

We (2 adults and 3 kids) are due to travel with jet2 for the first time for a family holiday in just over 3 weeks. When I tried to reserve seating this morning it appears as though all seat except exit seats are already booked, and these can only be booked by 14 years+. DC are 10, 8 and 3. As cheeky as it is, surely Jet2 aren't going to turn us away over this? I'm aware that this is expecting others to take seats they didn't chose and have paid for but it is the front row etc which is still available. Aibu? Do airlines provisionally allocate children seats and this doesn't appear?

Lol it's not an opinion, it's a fact.

No I like it is only your opinion not fact. As has been said that clause is for safety reasons not to pander to people like you who don’t pay but expect people who have to move. Indeed the public cases I have heard of with people being removed from planes have involved parents kicking off when people won’t give up their paid for seats for them not the other way round. I have paid for my family’s seats on Virgin next month and the only way we will be moving is if it is for safety reasons or to move to Upper Class free of charge. I really don’t care if you think that makes me selfish.

What an earth are you on about? You've no idea if I pay for seat a or not, I just said seats used to be free.

IronMansIronButt You can call it what you want. At the end of the day, I’m happy to pay to choose my seats and will continue to do so

You're happy to pay for something that used to be free, and still would be if idiots weren't happy to pay for something they don't need to!
God, but people are stupid.

ILikeMyChickenFried No, it’s still opinion. Saying “but it’s fact tho lol” does not make it a fact, however much you wish it were.

IronMansIronButt I am indeed happy to pay for it and will continue to do so. You can call me stupid, an idiot, all the names under the sun, but the only loser here is you; someone who thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to insult others because they don’t conform to a behaviour you deem appropriate.

Nah, cos I'll get the seats without paying, thanks. Enjoy your wasted huge cost though, I'll be spending the hundred pounds I saved on champagne.

Whether or not a prebooked seat is guaranteed is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact. People can be right or wrong about it.

IronMansIronButt That’s fine. Pay or don’t pay 🤷‍♀️ Makes no odds to me.

You can say it’s a “huge wasted cost” but:

1. It’s not wasted to us (and it’s our money we’re spending)
2. It only cost £4 each for DH and I when we last prebooked seats earlier this year. Enjoy your £8 bottle of champagne

did you miss where I said £100 for booking seats?

IronMansIronButt Did you miss the bit where I said £8 for booking seats?

That isn’t even close to a “huge cost”, nor was it “wasted”. It was money well spent; always is.

Seat allocation was never ‘free’ - it was just bundled in with the cost of the ticket - as well as things like hold baggage and food. The budget airlines split up the bundle, so,you got a lower starting price, and added the things you wanted or needed.

Basically, if you are buying budget flights, you are accepting the way they do business - if you want seat allocation, food, hold baggage included, you either pay for them on top of the baseline budget fare, or book with a more expensive operator.

If you decide not to pay for an allocated seat, you’re taking the gamble that you might not be seated with the rest of your party/family. I suspect that, most of the time, it works out just fine, and people can get seats they are reasonably happy with without paying for allocated seating, but if you do decide to take that risk, you shouldn’t, in my opinion, expect people who have paid the extra to pick their seats to give them up for you.

Think airlines need to solve this problem. If the booking contains eg an under 12 year old then seat booking should be compulsory, tickets should not be able to be booked without it.

I also think the least airlines can do if they move someone out their pre-booked seat is give them the cash refund there and then so you don't have the inconvenience of retrieving it yourself.

I would be very upset if I was asked to move out my pre-booked seat, in an emergency I want to sit next to my loved ones not a random stranger.

I never pay for seats and we are ALWAYS given 3 seats together in the same row after checking in. It's just a con

s she asks you for paw patrol 4 thousand times and pokes you in the eye until you listen to her, and then sits on your lap and blows her nose in your shirt.

I understand it all now. You’re not paying so the wee one actually has to sit beside someone else.

This thread has reconfirmed my long-held belief that flying brings out the vile in some people

#teamTeaTea

As SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius said. Seat allocation etc was never 'free', it was included in the cost of your booking whether you wanted it or not.

With the rise of budget airlines, this changed to booking the things you do want separately as 'add-ons' to your flight package.

If you want the basic service ie a seat anywhere re on the plane, you pay the basic price. This price years ago would have been higher as it included allocated seat, checked in baggage and food. If you want those services now, you pay for them on top of your basic flight ticket. If you don't want them or don't want to pay for them, all you can expect is a seat on the plane.

I was on a flight during the Easter holidays. Not a cheapie airline. The flight was full of families.

6 of us sat in 2 rows of 3 with an adult and 2 kids in each row.

Across the aisle was a mum and young child. A woman gets in and tells the mum she is in her seat. Mum smiles and says "I am sitting here to be with my child you can have my seat Xx" Lady explained that she was sitting in 2 of the seats in the row with her child and there was only one empty seat. Steward made mum (who tried to steal seat) move and told her flight was full but she would see what she could do. Mum ended up in row behind her child. Child at window , mum in middle.

While the passengers are arguing about where they sit and the poor staff are trying to sort it out - delaying flights and causing stress - the airlines are lapping up cash from people who are happy to pay for something that could and should be free. It's the airlines that deserve the grief here.

This thread has reconfirmed my long-held belief that flying brings out the vile in some people

I may be misunderstanding your post, so forgive me if I am, but what's vile about expecting to get what you paid for? do you take that attitude in other areas where a transaction takes place? Am I vile if I buy something from Tesco and expect to receive it? If Tesco takes the item I have purchased and gives it to someone else who needs it, but didn't want to pay for it am I being unreasonable to feel aggrieved about that? Why is booking a seat on a plane any different?

I flew by myself on a 5 hour flight a few years back so didn't bother booking a seat as no one to sit with! I was allocated a middle seat, got on and a young family of three with toddler had booked window and aisle in the hope no one would get middle, and asked the cabin crew to move me. I got my own row of three and a lovely snooze.
I now have a toddler of my own (so have admiration for that family's attempted tactics) and found jet2's online booking a bit of a nightmare, they allocated me (pregnant) and toddler the infant seat next to the window and then DH the aisle seat on the other side (lucky him). I had to call them (and cry ) to sort it as there were no infant seats with spare adjacent seats. PPs are right that some are held back as a real person on the phone could sort it! Didn't have to pay either.

It's a resolute selfishness that I'm thinking of - 'I've paid for this seat, it's MINE and no other almost identical seat will do even if it means a 3 year old sat alone for a flight'. It's not kind.

In my experience most of these seating issues get resolved at the point of check in.

And it's not selfish to refuse to pay in the assumption that someone who has paid will happily give up their seat for you? it works both ways.

I would move so a child could be with their parent, obviously..but for that parent to deliberately not pay (and openly gloat about it, as some have on this thread) but implicitly expect everyone to accomodate them is just as selfish imo.

Children under 12 don't need to pay for seats. They should be seated with the parent or within a one seat space.

The Civil Aviation Authority decree it www.caa.co.uk/Blog-Posts/Are-you-sitting-comfortably-/.
So please stop giving away money when you don't need to. Know the CAA expects families to sit together for safety.

Thingvellir It’s not kind to not book seats together with your 3 year old in the hope someone else will have to move to accommodate you. That is exceptionally selfish.

It is not the responsibility of other passengers to ensure parent and child are sat together - it is the responsibility of the parent.

These threads are funny.

Prior to understanding that some people think that those of us who pay to sit together with our DCs are mugs, I'd quite likely have been happy to move to let a family sit together if my circumstances allowed. Now - knowing that people deliberately don't pay, and worse don't even care if someone is moved from a seat they have paid for and in fact seem to relish the fact - I'd be much more reluctant to leave my seat. If I did move I'd expect the person I relinquished it to, to be grateful for my effort - real shame here that the entitled families wouldn't even grant that small courtesy.

Which is a shame for OP who seems to be trying to go through the correct channel to get her family sat together.