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.

Yes he ought to be able to show you the seat reservations for the return flight right now. On our summer hols this year with Jet2 I knew the outward and return seat numbers from the moment of booking. If he can’t do this then the same thing will almost certainly happen and he/ you urgently need to contact the airline to try to rectify it (will cost extra), rebook another flight or (my fave) go prepared to offer the £100 cash reward to anyone who will swop.

The H is a dick but the people who refused to move aren't.
Why should they move because OP's dick of a husband didn't want to pay for seats together?
Those people most likely paid for aisle or window seats and so they should swap to a shitty middle seat because other people didn't want to pay? No way.

Just out of interest I went online and went through all the booking steps for a flight I'm taking later in the week, right up to the point where the seat map appeared. The flight is quite full already and because check in hasn't started yet that means these are all people who have paid to choose a seat. There are lots of rows where the window and aisle have been booked and the middle seat is free. No one wants to sit in the shitty middle seat if they don't have to. A lot of those seat bookings will be people travelling alone but more and more couples are now booking window and aisle because there's been loads of "travel hacks" about doing that in the hope that the middle will remain free.
What this means is that when people come to check in 48 hours before the flight they will find a few pairs of seats together towards the back of the plane and lots of middle seats. The first ones to check in will be able to grab seats together but anyone else who doesn't check in as soon as it opens will be left with middle seats and that means there could be families in the same situation as the OP's family. If they wouldn't pay to sit together it's tough luck and they can ask to swap but shouldn't be surprised if people refuse to move to a middle seat or to somewhere at the back of the plane when they've paid to choose.

OP, your husband is a complete dick. I don't know what you can do about it really. I doubt he'll take any notice of you insisting he goes online and tries to purchase seats for the return flight, they may well be all booked up anyway.

I pay for the seats I want when I book the holiday & honestly I wouldn't haved swapped with you either.

I imagine it's incredibly unlikely you are going to get any better seats than what you had on the way out as most people booked their seats months ago.

Sorry but you need to pay to sit together when you book the holiday.

Your 'D'H is a controlling arsehole but you could have paid in advance for allocated seating rather than leave things to chance. I do this every time and consider it part of the overall cost. Sometimes it costs £20 per seat, sometimes it's £60+. That's the way it goes. Only once have we been unable to pre-pay for our seat allocation and that was because we booked at the absolute last minute and had to take what was available.
If I've paid in advance for my seat, no way will I swap. We choose our seats for a reason.

Sorry, but your Dh definitely skimped on cost. You can pay to select your seat at the time of booking OR check-in now opens as early as 30 days before the flight on many airlines and you select (and pay) at that point.

He fucked up. And the likely reason is that he didn’t want to pay.

I’d frankly refuse to fly with him and the children again unless you can see the booking and see that he has preselected the seats. Absolutely no way I would leave things so that my children were not seated with a parent.

You tell him that you want the booking reference number now to fix it as when he tried, it was a fuck up.

Check in opens a week or so before the flight. Sounds like he missed checking in and it closed 24hours before flight. He has made the mistake her and he is the only person to blame.

My kids are older teens/adult now and we don't care where we sit for short haul flights so I dont pay extra at booking any more to guarantee seats together.

Here is my anecdata:

Easyjet, BA etc, when we check in, I skip past the choose (and pay) for specific seats and 9.8/10 times we get allocated seats in a clump (there are 5 or 6 of us travelling normally) either 2/3 in one row and 2/3 in row behind, or across the aisles. We have never had people in between us. With Easyjest, which we use sometimes up to 4/5 times a year, we 100% of the time have been seated together as above (not that we care any more).

When we used to fly on Ryan Air (I wont go anywhere now that involves a Ryanair flight), they would ALWAYS dot us around. With Wizz, TUI etc, we are normally near in 2 groups, but not as clumped as Easyjet or BA etc.

This leads me to deduce that:

• Most airlines employ an algorithm that will try and sit famillies with kids together if they can.
• This isn't guaranteed though and if the flight is very full there simply may not be enough seats left available to do this.
• if your children are young enough to be bothered about sitting alone, you MUST pay, either at booking, or at timely check_in to be 100% sure of being seated together (as everyone with young children does - except your husband, who gambled to save some money, and lost).
• Cheaper airlines use a less family oriented algorith, or run much fuller planes, and so your odds are 50/50 on any given flight that you might be seperated.
• Here you REALLY MUST pay if you want to be seated together as your odds are lower.
• RyanAir, an airline ran by an absolute arsehole and staffed by vindictive knobs, have an algorithm that WILL specifically seperate you and dot you around if you don't pay, because they can, and because they enjoy it (I kind of admire the lack of fucks they give).
• Here, PAY, or better still, dont go anywhere where only Ryanair flies.

Your husband was clearly lying. It wasn't a computer error, he hadnt paid for allocated seats and then didnt want to. Gambled, and lost.

You pay for seats together when you book. You pick the seats at the same time as booking so you can always pick seats next to each other for you and the kids and put your husband on his own at the back.

And, yes, I'm sure things can happen but they will be very, very, rare and you empower your daughter to shout "don't touch me there" if they do.

I book my seats when I book my tickets. Then I know i am getting what I need. I would not wait until it is cheaper and run the risk of not getting what I want.

Tell him you're doing it, and not to be such an arsehole 😀

I suppose he might have thought it was an error when he saw empty seats together and couldn't get them without paying. Years ago you could so long as you had waited until check in.

Nowadays, with Ryanair at least, you can't and they make a thing of making sure you don't sit together if you haven't paid and still won't pay on check in.

Me too!!

but the worst we flew was whizz air. DS and I were travelling home from Rome. They wouldn’t let us sit together because we didn’t pay extra. Fair, I thought. He’s a teen so not really bothered. He plugs into his headphones and doesn’t say a peep on a flight anyway. But the lady he was sat next to? Was the daughter of the doddery old lady I got sat next to! They just split groups up on purpose in order to make you pay extra to choose next time. At least easyJet will stick you together if you check in and there’s space together. Whizz air have just got a shit ‘let’s purposely split them’ policy’. Probably this message will now be deleted based on pps saying their messages have disappeared. Anyway we obviously swapped and she got to be next to her elderly mum and I got to sit next to a teen who barely acknowledged me..

anyways, all this is not addressing the issue and apologies OP, I have been just as bad as the awful pps who are chuntering on about how it’s your fault because you didn’t pay to sit together. You have done no wrong and I feel for you (and I personally think the people who could see you distressed but still ignored you were utter arseholes). sometimes shit happens and you can’t check in. This used to happen regularly with DS’s last passport. It meant we had to go on standby couple of times as we could only check in at the airport (not the incident I referred to with whizz air). I get it. What I don’t get is why pps have been so unpleasant with blaming you snd and not tried to answer your question.

I haven’t answered your question either- sorry! But as an ex travel agent- if you can get hold of the airline and prove you are you, even without your booking reference (eg they will now already have your passport deets as you travelled outbound on the same booking), you should be able to discuss the issue with them. Good luck. And double good luck with being married to your DH - as that’s going to be a long and arduous thing if he won’t let you get involved in something as simple as a flight booking (I’m married to one of those but at least he leaves the travel arrangements to me considering my past career!)

That's awful OP, I would have been so upset ☹️ can't believe they happily sit small children on their own! And next to strange men as well, I don't care if I look controlling.

Also had I been on that flight I'd have happily swapped with you, what is wrong with people preferring to sit next to a lone child?

He just rang them and it was in loud speaker so I heard the conversation. I’m really annoyed with the airline. He was telling the truth at E**a (keeps hiding my message when I type in) didn’t allow him to select seats in advance. The airline which I don’t mention as it keeps hiding my message said we can’t select seats for kids online and they must be done in person! I ranted at them about my kids being sat away and it’s not right for them to do. He said the only option is we should go to airport now and speak to airline directly that’s the only way, I asked why we can’t just call and he said because it’s a security issue! When I get home I will be naming the airline. The guy literally couldn’t care less. I even said I will pay right now but he said it’s not possible I will have to talk to airline face to face in airport and cannot be done on phone or internet. We have never travelled with this shitty airline so first time we had this issue.

*sorry lots of typos as just got off phone to them and was quickly typing

DH said he will go airport early tomorrow when they open

Ah OP, I totally understand your reaction. But I wouldn't have offered to move either as that would have meant splitting up me, DH and DD. It's cost me almost £300 to book seats there and back for our upcoming holiday. I resent it, but paid it when we booked the holiday several months ago. I can't deal with the stress of not knowing!

You need to get clued up on booking a holiday and flights for next time (preferablywithout your dh). The only way to do so is by actually doing it. You keep saying you have no issue paying for seats and neither does he but he would have had the option to at the time of booking the flight. He purposefully chose not to on the hope that he could check in 24 hours before and get seats together without having to pay.

Not only is he controlling but he's cheap too. Not exactly a great catch is he?

The fault isn't with other passengers but solely that of your dh.

@teksquad nailed it

No you don’t. If you arrive early at check in you can usually swap seats easily that weren’t together at check in. This is a very reasonable request for families with young children and airlines do actually prefer it for health and safety reasons too.

if you don’t manage to sort it out at check in then try to get on the plane early, you should do with young kids. Then speak with the cabin crew straight away and they will
so their best for you, also usually individuals usually will move seats for you to be together.

I have been in all of these scenarios.

Maybe the seats left were by the exits. They maybe unable to be occupied by minors?

None of that changes the fact he was to tight to pay at booking. Leaving it to check in is always going to be stressful as there simply may not be any groups of seats left if its a busy flight and the airlines algorithm doesn't care about booked famillies who havent checked in yet (Ryanair, Wizz, other shit airlines).

As PP said, get the booking code.for way back, login, book 3 seats for yourself and then book a free/super cheap one for your DH next to the toilet.

He sounds awful OP. Controlling, incompetent and neglectful of his children. I am sorry.

So this happens to us every time we
travel with a lap baby with BA. No idea why. I didn’t realise airlines would let a small child sit next to random men. If you really want someone to move you could question why they are so keen to sit next to a small child. I think in future book directly with the airline is the way to go. You’ll then be able to argue with them at check in if their system was at fault. Save screenshots.

I just paid to make sure my husband and I are sat next to our children both ways on a long haul flight. There is no way I’d let anyone talk my DH into moving now. We paid, others should have too or it’s tough.

BUT this is a your dh is a dickhead issue. I book all our travel and my husband would never question it! Let alone refuse me the bloody booking number WTF?! I’d be seriously pissed off at 8yr dd being sat between two strangers especially men as well! What a prick you married. I’m so sorry.

Hi op it doesn’t matter to your dh that his dd will be sitting next to 2 male strangers. Yes assault can happen anywhere. I would say you definitely have a dh problem but him saying you might mess up is an insult to your intelligence seeing as he messed up big time you should feel brave enough now to tell him that this is not happening again you get the chance to book in a good few weeks ahead I’m not sure if you book particular seats if you haven’t paid extra but they are more likely to keep you close together. You should forget about how people seen you it’s about protecting your kids. And I agree your dh is a knob.