A controversial technique to avoid getting a seat you do not want has been criticised by a number of passengers. Many airlines charge more for seat selection on the plane - or automatically put you in a middle seat.
However, according to one travel specialist, there is a method that can stop the system from giving you a middle seat. And they say it comes without paying anything on top.
Jorden Tually explained the technique in a video on his TikTok account (@jordentually). He said low-cost airlines often automatically assign middle seats to those who select “random seat allocation”.
He says that this encourages passengers to pay for a window or aisle seat. Yet he argues that there is a technique that can help here - although it has been criticised by some online.
He says the method stops the airline's system from automatically assigning you a middle seat. First up, he said he looks at how many seats of this type are still available on the flight when checking in.
In a test of the method, he said he found a total of 10 middle seats available on a flight. He said the next step is to simulate the purchase of that number of tickets.
"I go straight to the website and pretend to buy 10 more middle seats," he said. He said when doing this, he enters the name of each made-up passenger.
You can just put in 'a bunch of letters in there,’ he said. Then, in the seat assignment, he selects all the middle seats or those he wants to avoid and clicks ‘continue’.
He said ‘the system is going to hold those seats for about 10 to 15 minutes.’ This is the amount of time users will have to actually check in and get a better seat.
When passengers select ‘random seat allocation,’ the system will not be able to assign the seats it has previously blocked. He said: ‘It only took me two minutes, and now I have a window seat. It has never failed me and is 100% successful when done correctly."
He advises completing the process from a computer and says it is more effective if done as close to the check-in date as possible, as there are fewer seats available.
But while some praised the technique, others pointed out the obvious consequences it would have. One commenter online said: "OMG, the self-entitled brigade again. If this does work, everyone will now try it, freezing up loads of seats and could stop genuine people wanting to book that flight, all because you think you deserve a better seat than those who have paid."
Others criticised the idea and said it would lead to prices going up where dynamic pricing is used, which sees prices fluctuate according to demand. One person commented on the YouTube post put up late last month to say: "Don't you know about airlines' dynamic pricing??" Yet another echoed this, saying: "Damn, that will spike up cost by 10-20%"
Another person said: "Now you delayed your flight 10 minutes while they wait for the computer queue to clear so other passengers can select their seats." A further commenter agreed, saying: "This is not a good hack, cause your ticket costs more when the system thinks it's fully booked."
Another added: "Congrats. Due to dynamic pricing, you've just raised the price of your ticket by 50%"
