Is seat booking needed?

[AccidentallyRunToWindsor]

We are off to New York this year (not long haul technically I know) and I am trying to work out if it's worth the extra money to reserve seats.

It's £80 each way, the DC are 15 and 13 and I thought that as they were under 18 the airline would automatically sit them next to us so we will at least be sat in 2's

Have I got that right? Or should I suck it up and cough up the extra money?

Just check in as soon as it opens and pick your seats together, it should be a non-issue. Ime very few people actually pay to reserve their seats and there are tons of seats at check in

Call the airline and ask them. Each one has a different policy, then you can decide based on the facts

With BA children 12 and above can be seated alone so check with airline. If you have children 11 or under you are allocated seats 5 days before so suddenly a lot of the plane can get booked up then. We have booked seats outbound to Oz (£160 for all of us together - ouch) but haven't booked return - my 12 year old is scared to be seated alone so will book for at least her and me. Then my 11 year old should either be sat with DH or I and DH doesn't care who he's by.

I've just paid £176 seat fees for us 4 for our holiday. It does feel like a real con, when you've paid for your holiday and the flippin extras really add up.

We're long haul with ds's aged 10 & 12 so I wouldn't want to risk us not being together.

We are flying with Lufthansa- not sure if anyone has experience of them?

We flew Lufthansa from New York to Heathrow via Frankfurt at Christmas. There were five of us (two adults, 3 teens), we didn't prebook seats, but were allocated seats together when checking in online.

However, a family near to us (two adults, two fairly young children) were split up, across three rows behind each other, so technically together, just not in the same row. The women was kicking up a fuss about it, saying she had prebooked the seats (although I'm not sure if she had paid for this, or just chosen seats when checking in online). Someone did swap so they could sit as two twos, but she still wasn't happy and moaned for the entire 7 hour flight!

So I would say, if you are not too bothered about sitting together, then no need to pay. But you are definitely running the risk of being split up.

As PP suggestion I would look up seat map nearer the time. Personally I would take the chance at not booking seats and then can always try to "ask nicely" if seats can be swapped if you end up with 3/1 split. In my experience it's easier to sometimes ask the air steward to help with this if you don't fancy talking to the passengers
Then save your money for a nice meal out with the family in NYC!

We have only once not paid for reserved seats purely because we forgot to do it and I was only flying with the youngest dc who was sat with another Mum with a same aged child on the row in front.
Best flight for me ever...

I had one flight with Norwegian were I had paid to prebook seats, got to check in and we had been split up, 3 year old on her own and 2 year old on their own. 😱 Not sure what Norwegian was thinking and quite annoying as I had paid months before. When I pointed this out got given seats together but they can be reallocated even if you book, on BA it says you then should apply for a refund which is a cheek, least they could do is automatically refund. And maybe not assume 2 and 3 year olds are fine several rows away from parents Norwegian. Made Ryanair look good.

That's the route we are taking @budgiegirl was it ok? It saves us so much money than going direct and we just diddnt fancy Norwegian as the reviews sounded crap

Accidently it was a great flight. We were on an Airbus a380, fabulous, quiet plane. Great inflight entertainment, decent enough food.

It was a bit of a pain changing at Frankfurt just because of the length of it (we had a four hour layover) and nothing much was open as it was very early morning, but worth it for the money we saved.

One tip though, if you buy any duty free at the airport in New York, keep it in the sealed bag. We bought two bottles of spirits and opened the bag to put a bottle into each cabin bag. We had to go through security again in Frankfurt, and they wouldn’t let us through with the bottles, and threw them away!

We have a 90 min layover so I am hoping it will be a case of getting off one plane and onto the next so not too much time hanging about, DH and DSC are thrilled that that get to tick another country off the list- I've told them a layover doesn't count as a visit to a country but they insist it will!

Good advice on the duty free- I will probably get some gin so will bear in mind what you have said.