The Unpublished Benefit of Paying for Preferred Seats

Many airlines – especially low-cost carriers – offer extra legroom and up-front “preferred” seats for an additional fee.

These seats have obvious advantages. For example, they might offer more space or be located closer to the door, meaning you can get off the plane sooner at your destination. But there’s another unadvertised benefit that can make the extra cost even more worthwhile.

Airlines don’t generally allow passengers to select chargeable seats for free – even at check-in. And, crucially, most passengers won’t pay to select one of these seats (either because they don’t see the value or because they don’t pre-select a seat at all).

Of course, if the flight is completely full, then all seats will ultimately be filled. But “preferred” seats are the very last ones that the airline will allocate to passengers that didn’t pay for them. So, if you’ve paid extra for a chargeable seat and the flight isn’t full, there’s a good chance that any vacant seats on the plane will be near you.

For example, earlier this year I paid extra for an Economy Space seat on Etihad Airways. I ended up having the whole row to myself.

I’ve also had good success with getting a whole row to myself on TAP Air Portugal flights within Europe when paying for a Comfort (EconomyXtra) Seat. These are closer to the front of the plane and have more legroom. Unless you have a subscription, TAP only makes these seats available to select for free up to 60 minutes prior to departure. By this time, most people already have other seat allocations so many of the Comfort Seats remain empty.

AirAsia and Jetstar are also among a long list of budget airlines that charge extra to choose an up-front seat. These don’t necessarily have more legroom, but they are likely to be the last allocated as most people won’t cough up the extra money.

Unfortunately, this trick doesn’t really work for Qantas flights as there are only a small number of chargeable seats (mainly in the exit rows) and they are often quite popular. That said, the exit row seats on Qantas’ Boeing 737s can sometimes be among the last to fill up. That said, Qantas does offer Neighbour Free seating for a fee on some flights.

Virgin Australia, meanwhile, offers extra-legroom “Economy X” seats. These are available for a fee, except for Velocity Platinum frequent flyers who can select them for free.

On routes with lots of business travellers – and especially at peak business travel times – the Economy X seats can fill up quite quickly due to the number of Platinum members on board. But on leisure routes and outside of business travel times, the Economy X seats often go largely unfilled.

Overall, my success rate on many different airlines of getting a vacant neighbouring seat, when paying to sit closer to the front, has been pretty good. It’s not guaranteed to work – but even if it doesn’t, you’ll still get the benefit of extra legroom or faster disembarkation. And if it ends up being a full flight, you wouldn’t have had a neighbour-free seat anyway.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.