Paying for seat reservations on flights

[MidnightPatrol]

I have just booked a flight and as increasingly seems to be the case, they want me to pay to reserve a seat.

I have a young child so I can’t ’risk it’ on the day, and the trip will be more enjoyable (by which I mean less of a nightmare) if we are seated together in one row (me, DH, DC).

The cost of this? 66 euros.

I just want to ensure I am seated with the other passengers in my booking, specifically my toddler. Feels grating to incur an additional expense for this ‘privilege’.

It nearly is the current system. Still you see how many people here claim they book seats or recommend to book seats "for the peace of mind" and on the off chance they would end up behind each other.

Booking window and aisle is often recommended as a generic travel tip. It makes sense, big potential gain and very low risk.

I always looked upon it as a potential babysitting service if my DC were sat away from me. (I have 4DC and travelled a lot with them). So never ever paid for the seats.

And it never happened. We were always seated together.

Dagnamnit. (Light hearted)

I've just booked our holiday for next year and it cost me an additional £88 to reserve sets of seats together. It is a tad annoying but I think it is just a necessary cost for our family. I witnessed issues on the flights I recently took where families hadn't bothered to pay to sit together and then ended up scattered throughout the plane, with parents moaning that they were managing multiple children alone whilst the other parent was sat miles away etc. We all have the opportunity to pick the seats so I say you do it, or you don't moan about where you end up allocated...
My family is lucky though as we are a "neat group of 3", so we just take a row of 3 together and that's us happy.