Plane seats - refused to swap

[Annoyed321]

please bear with me, I really need to vent but I need advice too.

Holiday with DH, 8 year old DD and 5 year old DS. Our seats were allocated away from each other. Not even on same aisle literally scattered on different parts of the plane. DH books and sorts checking in and I don’t usually get involved. He tried to apparently check in 24 hours before the flight but there was an error (he didn’t tell me), he was unable to check in and was advised online chat to see a member of staff at airport when we were flying, we get to check in on day of flight and lady says she can’t sit us together. I pleaded with her to at least let there be one of us sat with each child, no problem about all 4 of us sitting together.

She said to ask people when we get to the seat if anyone will swap with us. When we got there everyone refused, which I don’t really blame them as they checked in and chose their seats we didn’t or couldn’t.

I got very emotional as my 5 year old was crying about not sitting next to me DH as usual was unbothered and was just standing around looking unfazed. I’m really embarrassed about my reaction but he said it’s fine and I said it’s not fine “I’m not having my kids sat in between strangers”. It wasn’t as dramatic as I’m making out as it was over very quickly as the cabin crew we spoke to on boarding were able to allocate 2 seats together. Myself and my 5 year old took it and DH sat 2 rows In front of DD who was sat inbetween 2 men, DH was also sat between 2 guys so made no difference where I put her.

I was upset the entire flight and kept asking DH to keep an eye on DD, DH kept rolling his eyes and ignoring me. I felt like a bad mother leaving my child sat there with strangers. I feel embarrassed incase anyone videoed me at the start asking/pleading with people to please swap seats to allow me to sit next to my 2 kids. I only asked about 2 people and they avoided eye contact and ignored me, again I get it.

advice: DH is old fashioned (or should say a complete knob) he won’t share the booking details of flight with me as he’s worried I will mess up the booking, like I’m a stupid child! So I need advice please how can I make sure I am sat next to my kids on flight back home? I will need a booking reference I know which I will have to keep asking him for but the holiday was booked via Expedia and I think that’s what messed up when was trying to check in online 24 hours before. How can I check in if flights were booked with Expedia? I will call them if he doesn’t share booking ref but I doubt they will speak to me due to data protection. Any advice please?

Please be kind and don’t make me feel worse than I feel. Can anyone at least relate with me about how upset I was about DD sat alone? I am a survivor of childhood SA so my feelings might be out of place but I also read a news article literally a few days before flight if a 15 year old girl getting assaulted by a fellow passenger during a flight do these things do happen.

Do you have your boarding pass still? It would have a ticket number and you can go from there. Alternatively, tell him you don’t want to end up in the same situation so please give the ref number ( Expedia will be different from the airline but is buried somewhere in emails although if you have the Expedia one you may be able to see it there too). Don’t back out- what do you think will happen if you insist?

I actually did consider this but they fight a lot!

I’d want into his phone to see what’s going on.

Can you watch him put his passcode in or hold the phone to his face or finger when he’s asleep? If he doesnt like it then he shouldn’t have been such an ignorant prick and paid the money. He likely thought someone would switch and Hes save £50 or something. Clearly not. Prick.

Planes do sometimes have issues and in the event of a fire or something youll be trying to run in the opposite direction to those leaving to gwt to dc and causing problems or get trampled. It’s madness.

It really isn’t good enough. We need some kind of law that says under x age must be sat next to a parent.

That’s a strange story tbh, I picked random allocation (which is free) for DH and I, using expedia, but booking across two airlines: Tui and Easyjet, London - Greece. Both airlines separately prompted us to check in days before the flights were due, which I did as prompted. The check in prompt would be in OP’s husbands email for sure, so all you need to do to ensure you’re allocated together is retrieve this email and check in asap when you receive it. If you do this you shouldn’t have to pay for allocation.

Same here.

I tried to offer some constructive advice, as a retired senior travel executive, and my message has also been hidden. 😳

I did mention one airline but have seen same referred to many, many times on Mnet so don't see what the issue is.

I’ve very little sympathy with you being sat separately as you need to book seats in advance not hope to sit together at check in 24 hrs before when all that is left are seats that less miserly people haven’t booked . WRT your husband , you picked him , you had 2 kids with him and it’s up to you if you wish to put up with his behaviour , I wouldn’t .

This is what I would have thought.

lol!😂 are you my MIL

So he's lying about that as well then. No wonder he won't let you see the booking details.

Your DH fucked up and should have the good grace to admit it. I’d be furious with him. But it’s really not fair to plead with people to swap seats to accommodate you. It’s not their problem.

It is definitely a change in recent years and especially on budget airlines (I’ve had it on Jet2 as well as Ryanair). You used to always choose seats at check in (I’m old enough to remember when there was no online option!) and they would move things around to seat kids with their parents but now they have realised that it’s yet another ‘extra’ they can charge for that used to be included along with food and luggage. Now the option to choose your seats is there at booking and although you can decline and have random seats for cheaper you wouldn’t do it if it mattered ie with kids. This has led to a lot harder culture where people are a whole lot less amenable to swopping than they were as they assume people are pulling a fast one and trying to get something they didn’t pay for.

Sorry to hear this. Hopefully your message will appear back soon. I’ll take a read when it does. Thank you

Where does your twat of a husband get off telling you he won't give you the details of the return flight in case you fuck it up when he is the one who fucked up the outbound flight?

He's proven he's capable of getting it wrong, you haven't.

You can probably check in now depending on the airline you are travelling with, easyjet for instance opens check-in about a month before the flight. When my kids were little I made sure I checked in for any flight on the date it opened.

I'm ignoring the DH issue

It's pretty easy to find out a flight if you know the airline, day and airport. You then look up their seating policy online. I'm surprised that any airline YES EVEN RYANAIR would let 5 and 8 year olds sit away from their parents. I flew BA last month and did not reserve seats (not that bothered about paying £200 to sit next to my sleeping teen sons for 2 hours) but we were all in the same row on both legs. BA policy is to always sit under 12s next to at least one adult on the booking.

Refuse to fly with him again unless you do the booking in future and pay for your seats at the point of booking.

For the return flight insist on having the details now so that you can try and book seats today for your return leg.

Which airline is it? There's thousands of Mumsnetters one of them will have doubtless booked the same airline through expedia and know what to do.

Surely they could have behaved themselves for the duration of the flight?

But he did skimp on paying for selected seating - this is usually paid for at the time of booking and he chose to not pay. Also, you knew you didn’t have allocated seating and didn’t tell him to sort it well beforehand.

Book the holidays yourself
you seem to be more aware of safeguarding

OP what people are trying to get across is that 24 hours at check in is too late. We paid extra and booked the seats for our holiday this summer 11 months in advance. People used to give up seats for families but when you've paid an extortionate amount to reserve your seat (and may have gone without to afford it) you aren't inclined to give it up for people that you think are trying to cut costs. He needs to go into the booking and either try and get the seats together and pay for it or admit he screwed up!

If your DH doesn't trust you to book a holiday you have far bigger problems than seats on a flight!

It wasn’t a computer error at all. Your husband is a total dick who should have sorted this weeks ago.

But by that time there may well have been no seats left together anyway if other people had booked them before you.

I imagine the issue was that the online checkin didn't allow the kids to be placed alone so it wouldn't work. So he is probably telling the truth on this.

That said, instead of looking for validation, do listen to what pp's are saying. Sounds like almost everyone on the flight pre-paid for seats, which your dh clearly didn't do. This may already be problematic as the return flight is already likely to be heavily pre-booked. Log on to expedia, see if u can pay for seats now. If not, u will need to contact the airline to see if they can help. Next time insist that seats are paid for.

Christ there are some inane replies to this thread.

It sounds like the only seats available at this point were restricted seats - such as emergency exits. Either that, or there were no pairs of seats together.