Paying for luggage and seats together on flights?

[RosemaryAndTime]

If you were costing flights for a family of 4 would you consider the charges for seats together and luggage as "extras" or as part of the overall cost for what you need?

If I'm travelling alone and don't need luggage, I consider this a saving I can take advantage of.

I like the separate pricing as I can choose what I need but so many people seem to really resent this sort of pricing, especially over seating!

I would prefer that the price showed everything included and then the option to reduce price by removing the bits you don't need/want. Certainly in package holidays where the "extras" can be an extra 50%

I remember those days. Meals and drinks used to be included as well.

Paying for seats is a rip off.

People shouldn't pay then they wouldn't charge.

Apparently on busy flights, they may ask you to put your 10kg hand luggage in the hold if they've run out of space in the cabin. So if you want to be certain of keeping your hand luggage with you, you need to pay extra. That really is CF

I tend to think the CF is the way passengers bring on suitcases and leave little room for what used to be the normal “hand luggage.” And then refuse to put hand luggage under the seat in front of them, so they take up all the overhead bin space.

I don't mind luggage as we are a family of 5 and don't want to take 5 suitcases but we do want to sit together. Actually if I could get away with it I would sit on my own and some stranger can entertain the 2 and 4 year old!

I like having the choice

I don’t mind the extras being extra. When travelling as a family we don’t want to check in 5 suitcases - the car we are hiring wouldn’t fit them all in anyway. Plus 2 of my kids are now adults (in air fare terms) and only 1 is young enough to actually need to sit with a parent. We do pay to prebook seats but I’d happily sit alone - I have my headphones on for the whole flight anyway so I’m not into having much in the way of conversations!

I travel light so it never costs me anything for luggage. H needs the extra leg room so we pay for that, sitting together.

I think that they may have stopped this now, but I always thought Ryanair were cheeky charging a fee to check in online (with a larger fee at the airport, which is fair enough). Checking in really isn’t an optional extra!

I expect it on short haul, low cost airlines but I was annoyed when I booked a long haul flight through America Airlines and was then redirected to BA to choose a seat at a cost of at least £50 per person. I'd already paid over £1000 per ticket so it seems petty to add on an extra few ponds here and there. I'll try to avoid BA in future.

It’s part of the cost of travelling with children on a package holiday.

Some companies used to allocate a random seat for you right away if you don't pay and I prefer that. I can then pay just once to put DH next to me rather than us paying twice. Seats are extra but they are totally creating a problem when separating people and want us to pay for it that's not fair. I heard a lady that worked in tourism saying they wanted to introduce charges for toilets for short flights... they technically should also provide water for free and they do if asked.