Sitting together on a package- do I HAVE to pay to ensure not separated?

[elvislives]

We are flying to Gran Canaria in a week's time- me DH & DD, who will be just 3.

We don't usually do packages/ charter flights. We've just picked up the tickets to see that there is an option (that we weren't offered) to pay for "seats together". The travel agent told us to get to the airport 3 hours before the flight, which we plan to do, but are we going to find that everyone else has paid for "seats together" and they will try to sit our 3 yo on her own?

Has anyone done this sort of trip recently and can advise what is likely to happen (and what we can do if they try it?)

I think this is just another ploy by travel companies to get money from the punters! We experienced the same thing a while back but just made sure we arrived in plenty of time before the flight and had no problem at all sitting together. Surely not everyone will pay for this and you may find at this time of year that the flight's not even full. Good luck & have a great time!

I fly with my daughter and tend to pay to sit together, but didn't do this when we flew as a family (hubby,18 yr old, myself and 10 yr old daughter). Knew hubby would get a seat where my daughter could sit next to him at least.

You should be ok as one of you can go ahead and get seats, whilst other adult and 3yo can take their time.Easy jet say you can't keep seats for other members in the group, but they don't do seat reservations anyway, don't know other airline policies,.

I always think that they surely can't sit a child on its own, but it's probably up to the other passengers. Am interested to hear other responses as this bothers me every time I book!

sk

can you check in online 24 hrs before? that way you should be able to confirm seating together? depends on airline tbh.

Do you not think that if they placed your DD apart from you that someone would volunteer to swap seats so that you could be together?

I often fly on low costs with my 3 little ones (eldest is 5) and never pay to sit together. I always reason that whoever might end up sitting next to a fidgety unaccompanied toddler would almost certainly rather change seats than have to put up with them for the rest of the flight.

And if not, then I get some peace and quiet

No - we never have and refuse on principle anyway, its just another rip off!

There are 4 of us and we always end up together, or as two and two. (One adult per child) I would dearly love to seat them alone together in another part of the plane but sadly seats have always been found for us...

Checking in online doesn't seem to be an option.

A search on older threads has revealed that some airlines have tried to seat small children with strangers.

Your responses have reassured me a bit though, so I guess we'll just get there as early as possible and hope for the best.

We didn't pay, just went 3 hours early to check in. All 6 of us sat together, 3 and 3 with ailse in the middle. In resort they were offering to pre book seats for much cheaper (£10-15 ish for us all) so we did that for the way back since we couldn't arrive earlier than the others for the coach (package holiday).

We have never paid to sit together. If they tried to sit my 3 year old on her own I would kick up a huge fuss as that is completely unreasonable. I have never found it a problem, we have alwasy managed to sit together anyway. I'm sure if it did happen you could just ask the stewardess to help, someone would surely move, especially if it was a choice of moving or sitting next to a screaming 3 year old on their own for a few hours!