Seat swapping stories are legion. Usually someone with a middle seat expects another passenger with an extra legroom aisle to give up their better seat. And they don’t ask, they demand. Sometimes there’s trickery involved, like lying about which seat they’re offering until it’s too late.

I pick my seats for a reason, but as long as I’m not being inconvenienced too much by the request, and the request is a reasonable one, I try to be accommodating. Sometimes I get a thank you.

So it was actually thrilling to hear about a woman that tried hard to really show her appreciate for a passenger that agreed to switch seats. She kept trying to offer $100 as a thank you on a Boston – Atlanta flight in first class.

The aircraft was a Boeing 757 with lie flat seats up front. The woman is described as “elderly” and she was seated in the bulkhead window. The passenger at the aisle next to her helped her stow her carry-on bag in the overhead. She told him she “feels claustrophobic in the window seats in this particular seat configuration” and would he be willing to swap for $100?

Her seat opponent says he does prefer the aisle seat, but was willing to switch (for free) “as she wouldn’t complain about letting me out if need be.” Nature calls! They switched, and she kept trying to give him the money. He eventually took it.

She kept insisting she needed to do something nice for me, but I really didn’t care and just told her to pay it forward to someone else. We chatted for the rest of boarding about our jobs and family, but I thought the payment thing had been settled.

Upon landing in ATL she again insisted that I take money from her and tried to hand me $100. I tried to refuse again, but she told me to take it and give it to my kids but to explain to them how being nice to others can lead to something nice in return. I eventually relented and took her money, but I probably won’t tell my kids that because then they’ll expect me to pay them anytime they do something nice.

The man could also have suggested that the woman offering the $100 donate it to charity instead. I find that a great way to get what you want in seat swaps is,

• Ask nicely. Don’t be presumptuous.
  
• Offer a compelling reason for the request.
  
• Have a decent seat to offer in return. Make sure you get an aisle, or a window, but never a middle. You can’t expect someone to take a less desirable seat to help you.

Of course, money helps! 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.

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.