If you want someone to switch seats with you on a plane, you either need to offer at least as good a seat or offer cash.
- Don’t try to trade your middle seat for an aisle
- Or your window seat in the last row of coach for an extra legroom seat up front
- If you want to switch, you need great trade bait – or at least to offer something as good, so the person you want to do you a favor doesn’t have to take it on the chin in the process.
One Delta passenger, lacking a great seat to offer in trade, pulled out $100.
I normally select a aisle seat. This guy who was 2 rows ahead of me had a middle seat. His girlfriend was assigned the middle seat next to me. He said he tried to get a different seat at check in but was unable to. He then offered me $100 (all $20 dollar bills) to switch seats with him. For a flight that is normally 2 and half hours and to sit in a middle seat for $100.00 I said sure I will take it.
In fact, $100 seems to be the going rate for an aisle seat.
One commenter on this blog put it simply: cash rules everything around me,
My fee for switching seats starts at $100. If you don’t have cash then don’t bother. I chose my seat for a reason, and sometimes paid extra for it….Nope. Your guilt trip won’t work with me.
A reader once gave up his premium seat so that a family could sit together only to have the family sell that seat to another passenger and not actually sit together.
- The reader had paid $69 for the seat.
- They switched for free.
- And the passenger they switched with turned around and sold it for $100.
Another passenger once charged an obese seatmate $150 for taking up too much space.
I told the guy, “Look, I’ll put up with this if you give me $150 — that’s half the cost of this flight and that would compensate me enough for the circumstances.”
He instantly agrees, pulls out cash and pays me. He even told me he appreciated it.
This guy gets it:
I have never figured out why people don’t just do this. Trade seats for a price that is worth it to you. “I paid extra for this seat, I don’t want to trade.” I get that but, has, “Send me a Benjamin and you have a deal for your seat swap” has never been offered in this space, that I have seen.
It’s just a trade. We trade stuff all the time. If you aren’t willing to pay to incentivise the other party, you are saying how much the trade is worth to you.
For years I’ve been writing that one simple way to solve conflicts in the sky and get what you want is just to find a Coasian solution: you each have an initial set of rights (like your seat assignment). Those rights can stand in the way of another passenger’s preferences. So find a (cash) bargain that makes everyone whole. It seems like this is catching on and becoming a trend.
Just last week I swapped an aisle for a window on the opposite side of the plane so a family could sit together…. only to realize when getting seated that E+ on my new side of the plane stopped a few more rows up. Oooops.
“If you want someone to switch seats with you on a plane, you either need to offer at least as good a seat or offer cash.”
@Gary: You could sell your body.
I think Gary and VFTW deserves some credit, because we’ve been talking ‘bartering’ on here for a while. Also, great use of “This guy gets it.”
@L3 — Ah, what ‘services’ are you offering? Asking for a friend… (also, importantly, @L3 is not to be confused with @L737, two distinct commenters.)
Just FYI since many commenters lack the social grace to know: Accepting a cash offer from another passenger is a huge faux pas. If you’re going to switch, do it for free. If you’re not going to switch, decline politely.
@Erect — I donno. That kinda sounds a bit like communism. There’s a value exchange to be had here. Do you hate ‘the free market’ that much? *dangling tasty bait*
@Erect: Flaccid answer.
Time to ask @E. Jack Youlater and @Jack Mehoff for their thoughts!
Agreed, Gary has been pushing this for years. My gut says I wouldn’t say no to $100/hr. Or at least the same going rate as what I’d pay for a 1st class upgrade.
@1990 — yes, if it were me a certain Hedonism Bot line reference would’ve been made in response heh
On second thought $100/hr seems like quite the deal. The $100 for the 2.5 hour flight referenced I’d still probably gladly take if offered.
Lacking actual cash?
There’s Zelle, Venmo, Paypal, Cash app, etc.
I wonder what @Mike Hunt would charge!
The enshittification of flying and reversal of civilization in one nice package. Oh, probably also tax fraud, since I assume that nobody declares this income on their return as they’re legally required to do.
America going backwards in full display
@Mary — Fun how the whole ‘no tax on tips’ farce is basically going to be abused by elite Wall Street types to try to get their massive bonuses classified as ‘gratuities’ and continue to live ‘tax free,’ while the poor lose their homes, healthcare, and access to food. What’s that CNBC show… ‘American Greed.’
If you are fortunate enough to receive a complimentary elite upgrade to a first-class seat, I believe it would be a nice gesture to arrange a seat swap with a coach passenger. For approximately $300.00 in cash, you could exchange your upgraded seat for their aisle seat in coach, or at least $600.00 if you opt for a coach middle seat. I would like to see a future VFTW article discussing Gary Leff’s recommendations for compensation regarding seat swaps.
Hear me out: Seat-assignment auctions.
@Mary — you got it! Minus the income part – something like this doesn’t need to be declared. My best friend from college is a tax partner at Kirkland, and I’ve also checked with my neighbor who is an in-house CPA at Blackstone.
@1990 — as you probably know, the lower and upper classes of society (and there is no place in America where the strata are more clearly demarcated than in NYC/Manhattan) — operate under different standards of civility. A version of communism is indeed practiced in the upper classes, often for convenience, but also for civility. If you visit any top law firm, tech company, or quant hedge fund in the city, you’ll find a bevy of free food, everything from packaged snacks to cooked-to-order. Meanwhile if you work at a warehouse or in a lower tier 9-to-5 job you’re stuck waiting in the lunch line at Sweetgreen paying $20 for a salad.
I would think airlines would frown up this. I get a free upgrade for being a top elite and then I whore myself around the gate area selling my seat to anyone willing to pay $100.
I paid more than $100 to reserve the seat I picked, I’m not moving for less than triple what I paid in cash. And then I might think about it.
@E. Jack Youlater — You just had to go there, didn’t you… knocking on SG… *shaking my head*
Most people don’t carry around large amounts of cash with them on a plane. The best thing to do is to stay in one’s assigned seat. If one can’t possibly get their seats together, they’ll have to endure.
What’s the going rate for an exit row seat on a 14-hr flight?
Nice 😉
@CRS-
I would wager a lot of people do actually have $100 cash in their pocket.
@1990-
If you sing praises for SG in NYC, odds are you’ve only gone to their Flatiron location. That location is a short walk from the DoorDash NYC office where employees are given lunch credits and often use them to pick up salad at that SG. Nationally, DD and SG have a partnership and the Flatiron team is obviously keen on greasing the wheels of that partnership by delivering outstanding levels of customer service. When you walk in the door, they have no way of knowing whether or not you’re a DD employee, so everyone gets the smiley, polite treatment and very high quality greens.
Meanwhile, SG at Hudson Yards, NYU (Washington Square Park) and Brooklyn (MetroTech) are staffed with the apathetic-at-best, often hostile employees that are commonplace in NYC retail hiring when you pay only the minimum wage and fail to properly screen candidates for a pleasant demeanor. I watched a very well-dressed man at the NYU location walk up to the counter, smile politely, and say hello, all the while the employee behind the counter maintained a pouty countenance, didn’t return the verbal greeting, and didn’t even look up to make eye contact with the customer.
Why would anyone have a problem with someone trading cash for a seat? It smacks of squirrel Marge and her “don’t do that!” campaign. I offer cash to people for getting something I can’t reach at a supermarket. Way easier than flagging down an employee.
@E. Jack Youlater — No, I have not, but I guess I can try it at some point to ‘feel’ the difference. Bah! As for NYC retail, umm, it depends; as a consumer, I try to ‘treat others as I wish to be treated,’ and also, ‘set low expectations,’ generally, not just in NYC, but anywhere. Of course, I like to be pleasantly surprised, and if you frequent a place, you do get to know the people after a while. Thankfully, there is a higher wage here and more worker protections than many other places in the USA, but still, not as good as parts of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. (and even there, always room for improvement.) That said, it’s not a sweatshop. And the days of literal slums in Five Points are over. By contrast, you can’t honest say that conditions are better in the mainland, can you? Like, the CCP isn’t running a ‘workers paradise’ over there. Talk about brutal.
The thing about low expectations, while prudent, is exactly why NYC can’t claim to be the best city
Like, we can’t be claiming to be the best while at the same time telling people they need to come with low expectations!
As for the CCP, it’s the most competent government in the world and will lead China to prosperity of unheard of levels. China’s third tier cities already exceed Manhattan in density and recreational opportunities.
@E. Jack Youlater — I was referring to retail broadly, but ok. As for NYC, I don’t think anyone here cares much about what anyone else thinks about anything, most of the time. So, set ’em high, set ’em low, doesn’t matter. Besides, haven’t you seen the new Smurf’s films… ‘don’t mistake kindness for weakness.’ As for CCP, you’ve been reading a bit too much China Daily; every time I walk by one of their newspaper boxes (yeah, oddly, they still have those), it’s always something absurdly positive without any detail, like ‘Economy is strong!’ or ‘Xi signs deal!’ It’s laughable. No doubt on density and recent development. I could go for some new high-speed rail here, because the Acela (max. 120 mph) just ain’t cuttin’ it compared to the CRH. That said, they may have overbuilt. Gets expensive. No where is perfect, but folks still want to live/work/visit NYC more so than Yiwu or Xi’an (yeah, I’ve been.)
@E Jack Youlater wrote, “we can’t be claiming to be the best while at the same time telling people they need to come with low expectations! “You can however become the best with the worst!
Ahh… @Ken A… the hero we need but don’t deserve…
@1990 – outside the urban northeast US, dare I say, retail is almost uniformly good. Like, in NYC, you’ll get uniformly good service at the tippy top end of retailers. But if you go to the south, west, or the Midwest, you’ll get good service even at low end retailers.
People want to live/work in NYC for one reason. Money. You can make $10 million a year here as a lawyer who isn’t even particularly good. The co-CEOs of KKR make $500 million a year.
In the south, west, or Midwest, you’d be extremely lucky to make $500k.