To not pay to choose seats but expect to sit together?

[Peachpicklepie]

I'll be flying with easyjet on a short flight (just over an hour) soon. It will be me, my toddler (2 years 4 months) and my baby (four months). Baby will be on my lap. According to the website they will sit children near an accompanying adult - surely in the case of a two year old this means next to?! I really don't want to spend another £20 on choosing seats if it's unnecessary.

I want to choose which seats I sit in. I don't care if I have to pay more for that.

If you don't care, don't pay <shrug>

I really would pay the money - it’s just not worth the risk. As others have said, “next to” has a very wide definition which can include in front or behind as well as across the aisle.

Please don’t rely on other people swapping with you if this happens, it’s not fair on them - people who’ve paid to be with family, or for the seat they want/ need shouldn’t be put in that position.

Its horrible for your child if they’re not next to you, and you can’t be assured they will be if you don’t pay for it.

Nonsense.
Airline has a duty and can't expect the passengers to pay extra/do anything extra for the duty to be fulfilled.

Paying for places is about seats objectively (more space) or subjectively (window view) more desirable. If the only "preference" is to be close to toddler, but ok with any seats, it is on them. If the airline decided to not resolve their duty during booking process/seat assignment process, it is on them to resolve.

Anyway, with EasyJet's 30 days in advance check-in, it shouldn't be an issue.

Contact EasyJet customer service to discuss the arrangements. Plus you’ll need a car seat for your 2 year old.

I’m always really glad we are a group of three (Dd, ds and me), so that no one is likely to be asking us to swap seats, as no one else will be in our row to make it an issue.

Wouldn’t be swapping anyway though (say if I’m alone) as I need an aisle, pay for an aisle, and will be sitting in the aisle seat (I’m very claustrophobic).

Depends when you're going. We go the day after the kids break up for the 6 weeks. I looked the other day and they'd not only changed the aircraft to a larger one but I'd say 90% of the seats were greyed out. Online check in only opened today as well so 90% of the plane has paid to prebook their seats.

I think it's ridiculous to charge for keeping groups who have booked together (especially with small children) seated together. We have paid and resented it as we don't care where we sit, but wanted to be with our children.

My sister got caught out in Easyjet with her two tiny ones and flying alone when they cancelled her flight (on which she had pre booked) and put her on a new one but, by then, she couldn't select her seats and they put her 2 year old miles away, but then told her off for not having pre booked as she couldn't be that far from her- she had tried to sort as soon as they put her on that flight, at check in and at the gate - she was totally humiliated as the captain had to come out to sort it. To add insult to injury she never got the refund for the seats she had paid for on the cancelled flight.

For £20 I'd just pay but think it's a stupid policy.

I also think it’s best to view it as there’s a discount for not wanting to choose seats

We go 2 days before school breaks up and about half the plane was pre booked.

I didn’t prebiok but checked in 30 days before and we all got seats together.

I wouldn’t risk it if most of the plane was booked though.

@ZiriForEver

Airline has a duty and can't expect the passengers to pay extra/do anything extra for the duty to be fulfilled.

I think the problem is many don't really understand what that duty (i.e. legal obligation) really is...it's actually (UK case) not a lot, as per the UK CA guidance I posted a while back.

Just because seats are greyed out doesn’t mean they are all pre booked.

When you check in you don’t see the plan anyway, they are auto allocated.

We've chosen not to pay for seat selection on our trip this summer. It may only be £10 per flight, but we have a connecting flight and there are four of us, so £160 total to choose seats.

In our case though, the children are 11 and 7 and the flights are short ones. If we end up with two pairs of seats that's fine for an hour long flight. Within each pair of seats, across the aisle wouldn't be the end of the world, and if we end up with one pair being in front/behind each other I'd be willing to gamble someone would be happy to swap as long as we were willing to give up the "better" of the allocated seats. Failing that, it's not the end of the world.

I must admit I might well pay the fee if it was just two seats and I was traveling with a toddler though!

The OP will not require a car seat for the 2 year old, unless she's hiring a car at her destination.

This

In that case airlines should be forced to advertise the true price and offer a discount at the booking stage, not pretend your flight is £31 per person only for you to find the price has quadrupled by the time you've selected the options to not be separated from your toddler and be allowed to bring a toothbrush.

For the flight? I’ve never taken a car seat for a dc at any age

What?! I know a lot of people choose to do the car seat thing in the US but it’s still not a ‘need’. Besides, to my knowledge there aren’t even any UK toddler car seats currently for sale that are airline approved. I do it occasionally, mostly because we want the car seat on arrival but also it’s nice that DC can sleep with the headrest rather than on me but I take our old seat from the US (and conveniently ignore the fact it’s actually illegal to use it in a car in Europe).

If they sit your 2y next to you but it is the row in front, the row behind or across the aisle - how will you react? Will you accept those seats as being yours, without fuss?

If the answer is yes, then go ahead and don't pay to book.

I've always paid as it's important to me that we are all sat together in seats adjacent to one another. Not paying and leaving it til the end would mean I was more stressed. So I pay to remove the stress and anxious feeling in the run up,to,check in.

If you don't follow the lawful instruction of a crew member you can get chucked off.

I wouldn't pay personally and I would also move for you. My youngest is 12.

§it's been the norm for many years now - Imdont think seas have been included in most airlines fees for a long time, and certainly not budget airlines - and yet none have yet introduced paying for the toilet, so I suspect it's unlikely.

Where possible.
If you check in late then they can't guarantee this.
And next to can mean across an aisle, or the row in front or behind you.

It always starts with the cheapest, nastiest, most budget airlines.

So Michael O'Leary decides to start charging people to start choosing their seats and if they don't pay deliberately splitting up groups for literally no reason other than to force them to pay. But because the idiot customers just paid up and kept flying Ryanair instead of saying, "Actually, once you add on all these extra charges it's not really any cheaper than flying with a proper airline" and taking their custom elsewhere, Ryanair got away with it so Easyjet started doing it, and now you don't even really have the ability to avoid it by flying with a proper airline because the proper airlines are doing it too.

Same with baggage. Once it became clear that most people flying with budget airlines weren't prepared to pay extortionate fees to check a bag until the hold, they started charging for cabin baggage which most people can't do without.

Charging to use the toilet (which Michael O'Leary has suggested) and banning passengers from bringing their own food and drink onto the plane are just about the only places left to go now pretty much everything else is classed as an optional extra.

To be honest, I can't be arsed with these unscrupulous airlines ripping passengers off and will probably avoid flying altogether until my kids are old enough to sit alone.

Most airlines charge. I've flown with BA, Virgin, Etihad, Emirates, Qatar, etc and all charge. It's not just EasyJet and RyanAir who charge!