A United Airlines flyer stuck in a middle seat wonders if it’s alright to offer cash to someone with a window or aisle to switch with him? He only has a window to offer to he correctly understands that no one is likely to do a straight trade.
I’m flying last minute with my girlfriend and there are only middle seats left in economy (no first at all). Would you take $100 or $200 cash to switch from a window/asile to a middle seat (3hr flight to DEN)? is it rude to ask? I’ve never done something like this so I don’t want to be rude or ask if this is completely outrageous.
The internet was widely divided, but clearly the key is to ask nicely, and take whatever answer is given, don’t be snarky in response if a seat opponent says no to a trade.
There’s nothing wrong with asking someone to trade, and nothing wrong with offering them money to do so. In fact more people should do this.
- Just as airlines charge for seat assignments, passengers have something of value, why not take that asset and sell it to someone that values it more?
- Indeed, shouldn’t the airline even encourage this and take a slice of the proceeds? Airlines rarely turn down extra ancillary revenue, especially since it’s exempt from the federal 7.5% excise tax on domestic airfare (so it’s tax arbitrage, too).
The passenger asking about a cash offer to another passenger to improve their seat is flying United, and the United app actually has a pretty nifty tool that helps you improve your seat assignment. It had a 40% success rate in July.
For other carriers, you can set a free alert with Expertflyer. At a minimum, you may not get two seats next to each other if that’s what you’re after, but improving from a middle seat gives you better trade bait.
I’d suggest that United’s app is good enough that it should be pretty easy to build in a simple seat marketplace for other passengers on the flight to bid and engage in an exchange.
Putting the airline in the middle, processing payments, and taking a cut would also solve for potential conflicts that could flow from
- A passenger not fulfilling their end of the bargain (taking payment and not moving, or switching seats and payment occurring with fake currency)
- Pre-selected meals if first class is involved
To be clear, even switching seats without airline permission is potentially verboten. Re-selling a ticket isn’t permitted. And re-selling an airline seat isn’t technically going to be allowed by most carriers either. But there’s nothing improper or immoral about making the offer or accepting such an offer.
If someone wants to pay me $100 to switch from a middle to and aisle or window seat, sure. I’d accept it. If they are going to ask and pay that much, it must be extremely important to them, so I’d be there to help. If it’s cross country > 3 hours, maybe I’d be wanting $150. I don’t believe there is much value in paying for different seats on most aircraft. I would pay $200 more for a business class seat like the 777 or 787 that fly cross country but that’s about the max for me. I got spoiled with status when I’d pick the right aircraft and get upgraded but anything about $200 just cannot be justified. I don’t understand people’s value point of view to pay ridiculous amounts for a seat.
BTW – Spirit’s new aircraft have 1″ wider middle seats vs. Aisle and Window. – They’re also the only airline that I will pay up to $50 for a big front seat because I always walk off their flights with pain in my shoulder blades since they have the worst seats. I’ve learned to take 3 motrin before any spirit flights.
two hundred would suffice. it’s for three hours.
Gary, the “internet” you refer to is reddit. That’s teenage basement dwellers. That’s incel losers. Soy boy betas. People with no rizz, nor work experience, nor, frankly, life experience.
I couldn’t care less what reddit thinks.
I would push back on your insinuation that offering money is appropriate. Such offers are culturally sensitive (or insensitive). Quite frankly if somebody of your own background is offering money, you are furthering a negative stereotype about your own people.
Do not offer or accept money.
Presented with such an offer, I likely would respond in a traditional manner of a friendly nonstop sales pitch of the benefits of buying a life insurance policy. That was the traditional way of making an adjacent passenger self-quarantine, before the current Travel Era of screens and viral tiktoks. At best, I could earn a lucrative commisson on the life insurance policy.
“… your own people”? Please, we’re all human beings. Our people are people. No individual is a representative of any “people.”
What’s the big deal? Ask nicely but prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
SFO/EWR:
“I would push back on your insinuation that offering money is appropriate. Such offers are culturally sensitive (or insensitive). Quite frankly if somebody of your own background is offering money, you are furthering a negative stereotype about your own people.”
I dunno, I think maybe you’re one of those “…basement dwellers…incel losers, soy boy betas” for whom you show so much disdain; I can’t think of anyone else who would have so much time on their hands and so few productive things to do that they’d try to turn a strictly financial transaction, no different from the transaction of buying an airline ticket, into a feeble, ham-handed attempt at culture-baiting.
If, or when, you ever grow up and become a real man, I hope you’ll be able to come right out and say what you really mean, however odious, rather than trying to hide behind a wilted word salad of cowardly euphemisms.
If I were an avid traveller I honestly wouldn’t be suckered into such a pathetic deal. You’d have to offer more than $200 for that kinda thing
two hun do for three hour flight, just take it.
less than six hundred you don’t have to file taxes.
someone who thinks shouldn’t take/offer money never lived off of tipping.
Nevertheless, it’s kind of a gratuity, mind your own business.
@Don G You’d claim this on taxes if it was >$600? The IRS must love you. No paper trsil, so how does the IRS catch you? Of course, everybody, I’m not supporting/suggesting tax evasion here.
@Dave W. You’d have to file a 1099SW (Seat Swap).
Since when is Reddit a piece of garbage? If you’re looking for the answer to a question a hit on Reddit is far more likely to actually have an answer than your average page offered up by a search. For a non-specialized question it would be my second choice after anything in the StackOverflow realm.
I like your idea about airlines creating a seat switching marketplace, Gary. Society could then safely reject all requests to switch seats. No more excuses for people to demand switching seats for family to sit together. No more freeloaders begging to switch to inferior seats after buying basic economy. You had your chance. Only question is that it may undermine airlines selling seat selection fees when planes aren’t full yet though, so not sure airlines would go for it.
@EWR: You seem to.have confused reddit for 4chan.
Reddit is actually (usually) a really good place to get real information on topics without having to sift through a bunch of click bait in Google search results.
Nope.
SFO/EWR:
I’m 50, working, dad of two teen girls.
Love Reddit, reading, moderating, posting.
My rizz is so sigma it’s goated. Skibidi.
Don’t be Ohio.
.
SFO/ EWR
Point on the doll where Reddit touched you.
Projection seems to be in full effect throughout your post.
Please do enlighten us all as to the many cultures in the world where offering money in exchange for a product or service is culturally inappropriate and we’ll all send you a link to the wiki entry detailing that cultures tragic demise thousands of years back.
A culture doesn’t have to be capitalist based to have a system of barter or exchange of currency to obtain items from another.
I don’t fly a lot but two times in the last year I have flown from South America to North America, and then picked up my daughters aged 11 &15, and continued over to Britain, and also made a round trip flight from London to Crete, and then back to Florida and South America. I never requested any particular seat, and these three of us were always sat together. On three out of the four trans Atlantic flights the free meals were absolutely excellent. Airlines who try to con people into paying extra for certain seats are just trying it on. If all passengers refuse to cooperate with this, the airlines would just have to seat people appropriately anyway.
I’m a pilot and can fly free on standby..if middle is all thats left and flight is over a hour…no way…nothing in this world I need to get to that bad…
Depends on what or if I paid to get the seat. I might. I wouldn’t be offended by an offer. It’s a simple yes or no
“Point on the doll where Reddit touched you”
Clayton wins “Post of the Day”. Please collect your prize at the door.
Middle seats in common sizes of today should be removed and remaining seats at window and aisle widened. That goes for sides to left and right, in some airplanes there’s a middle section, they need the same, wider seats with some removed to cause the same seat spaces. That would clear up the problem of “the middle seat” and would afford space everywhere to have single-occupancy armrests, keep people from using peers’ shoulders as travel pillows and stop “manspreaders” from closing in on women’s leg spaces. For”leg room” the “seat pitch” or distance between rows also needs to return to older measurements, I think 35 inches for safety reasons as much as for keeping knees from bruising.
As for requests with offers of money and requests without money, passengers looking for a deal, just to help anyone or to get out of better seating some like, that should be on the passengers to offer, no one first asks so to initiate that conversation, it’s by offer only that someone wanting an upgrade can continue that conversation.
And airlines should stay out of what passengers do with money involved, don’t try to get a cut by setting up a trader’s shop at the ticket booth or inside the airplanes because that will help convince people to trade and can take up time in setting up who goes where and getting off the ground. The airlines should only be asked by passengers in the process of doing business, if one or more seats are available someone can choose to change. Also, the airlines should drop the added fees, and really, they should bring about a spacious seating plan throughout all parts of their airplanes, take out the higher-end and low class seating they have, then go by balancing the airplane out only.
By all this, you book but may change before boarding and no one bothers you for space, trades or sales, it’s just you and what’s left during booking and at actual boarding time, you can offer free or paid options to go to seats between people to nearby passengers if you like when things start to settle.
This spacing and passenger rules will also help settle matters with wider passengers who’ll fit better into proper seating without making physical contact with peers under armrests and at shoulder heights, and no one with a thinner peer will inadvertently buy up a seat with a wider peer because someone else made a quick and blindsided deal to get out of that tight situation from another row.
On the matter of middle seats, I also think seatback screens should be taken out and replaced with the old-fashioned tray set-up. These screens cause more maintenance expenses and electrical wiring and or extra components problems. And they are viewed throughout the flight which means seats must not be reclined in front of people viewing them. The trays are generally used at meal times and people are asked to sit up and remain that way so everyone can use these during those scheduled times. But I read someone was upset because the seatback screen was brought too close and or at an odd angle with a recline and so there was a fight between the reclining passenger and a couple behind, the couple were doing the harassing and moving the reclined person by bumping the seat. With proper “seat pitch” and no added things on seatbacks, it’s not that difficult to get along with people chosing to recline or stay sitting up, it’s just a seatback with a handy tray stowed or in use. Let’s keep in mind, some people have vision problems and a screen too close or at a downward angle can appear blurry or require and awkward change of common Rx glasses or other lensed optical devices. We normally adjust ourselves and our personal screens for our needs, having someone else make screen adjustments means we then self-adjust again or lose out if that won’t help, where as a simple seatback seams to not matter for what’s visible on that.
Also, some airlines may be offering or allowing Internet access to inappropriate choices for movies and ads and others will see that from beside or from the aisle. If it’s just some overhead screens, they’ll have to appease everyone with something fun or calming to watch and nothing to offend, children will be able to sit and move about without seeing inappropriate scenes. That should be for personal screens too, keep it clean or keep it turned off.
With seats too close, screens will be easily and frequently seen by neighbouring passengers, that’s why I think middle seats and between seats in middle sections should be removed from side sections and or spaced out better for middle sections.
I recall a time that flying was for flying as much as for speed and a window seat gave a little more to that experience. Music was delivered on some airplanes through a safe series of tubes routed through the airframe to the seats and a valve selector for music would enhance the experience in tube style earphones which doubled as a reasonable pair of earplugs when not plugged in at the selector. And some airplanes had only two x two or four seats per row, so you got a window seat or an aisle seat, with all seats and meals being the same values in the length of the passenger area, only crew members had their different style seats for whatever they were designed for.
A system that sells last minute seat upgrades Optiontown has this capability to offer seat swaps. I’ve never seen an airline decide to activate this functionality but it’s already possible with some airlines
As an add on to what @Julien Cooper said, it would be interesting if airlines provided a row or two of theater wide seats (two on each side of a single aisle airplane in the B737 or A320 families) at a price 50% above the standard width seat. I wonder if they would sell enough to be a success. They would be for not only larger people but also for the smaller ones that just want to have more room. A rework of the tray could lead to a wider tray that would be better for those doing work. Wider seats can make up for crunched knees as the person can sit a bit sideways, the same way that happens if the next seat is unoccupied. Another idea for airlines to try out would be to have a cabin of three seats on one side and two seats on the other side in the airplanes listed above. A 20% higher price for an extra three inches. I would seriously consider that every time.