Using seat selection to try and get free middle seat

[loobloke]

So I logged on to update seat selection for my return flight and I see this on my outbound flight.

Now when I travel with my family (four) I never do this. I'm just a considerate person!

Does this stuff work if the flight is empty? It must annoy staff - this flight is relatively full and if they online check in its sure to assign them those seats.
I suspect its the one person, I checked this seat map last night and I was the only person who had selected seats in economy.

 

[Ewing]

I always do that when travelling with others.

I feel fine doing so given that airline staff have previously offered me that seating configuration when checking in with others (and one domestic airline is also quite happy to proactively block out the middle seats so that they remain empty if there's enough spare capacity).

Apologies to anyone who has missed out on 3B or 3E because of it.

 

[simongr]

I am not sure what you are thinking people are doing?

They will have preallocated based on preferences and filled up from the front backwards. A lot of travellers are solo fliers so grab aisle or window - no-one grabs the middle.

 

[loobloke]

Well I tried to add seat selection for another leg last night but couldn't yet, so I checked this seat map to see that noone else had selected seats.

Might by the system doing it automatically, but I thought virgin's system filled seats up when online check-in is open from previous experience (sometime during T-24).

There are still some saver fares - but they are very expensive so makes me think that the plane is nearing full.

Just wondering if doing this works?

 

[medhead]

Sorry, you've lost me. What is doing this? They are all most likely single travellers, so I'm not sure what they are "doing". In fact even looking at that seat map you could always take a middle seat if you wish.

I've also found on occasion that the middle seat sounds as occupied and I get on to find it is empty.

 

[vertisol]

Was on a reasonably empty QF 737 from Mel to CBR on Tuesday sitting happily in row 7 aisle, someone pleasant in the window seat thinking the door was about to be closed when a straggler rushes in only to sit between us. I looked around and there were plenty of free rows. Window seat guy obviously thought the same thing and pipes up with "did you choose the middle seat?" Middle seat guys cheerfully says "oh yes, I like to be close to the front". Window seat guy mutters 'this is cough' (which it kind of was) and bailed as soon as the seatbelt sign went out.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

So I logged on to update seat selection for my return flight and I see this on my outbound flight.

Now when I travel with my family (four) I never do this. I'm just a considerate person!

Does this stuff work if the flight is empty? It must annoy staff - this flight is relatively full and if they online check in its sure to assign them those seats.I suspect its the one person, I checked this seat map last night and I was the only person who had selected seats in economy.

So what seats did you actually allocate yourselves on this flight?

Just remember that no matter what airline you travel with, when you look at the online seat map at T-24 it's not indicitive of how many pax are actually on the flight. You may see what appears to be a lot of 'empty seats' but if it's a full flight what you're really looking at is 'unallocated seats' which will be assigned to pax on checkin at the airport.

We were lucky getting a spare seat when we flew on VX LAS to JFK. We'd selected something like 12D&F at the time of booking then when we turned up at the airport the staff told us they'd blocked off the middle seat which I thought was great service.

We tried this on our other VX flight SAN to SFO but a pax was allocated the middle seat on this sector but was very happy to take the aisle. You win some, you lose some.

 

[Warks]

I often play a form of roulette with seat selection in order to try and ensure a set next to me is empty. This can involve switching seats as late as possible to a spot with a gap next door. However as others have noted this does not guarantee anything. If you are on a 767 towards the front and you grab an aisle seat in the centre section then it's likely you'll get no one next to you if the plane isn't full. If you look at any almost full flight you will see that the only remaining seats tend to be centre seats in the front few rows indicating that higher status flyers must be looked after to some extent or there's something else going on that I don't know about.

As for the OP I don't know how you can reserve more than one seat for yourself, if I read that right.