Couples swear by seat booking ‘hack’ when flying but people are divided

COUPLES have divided opinion by using a “booking hack” when flying that has put other passengers in awkward positions.

A lot of people have their own methods for getting extra room on planes, but there’s a two-person system that is causing some problems.

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It requires couples, or a pair of friends, to book the aisle seat and the window, leaving the middle seat free between them.

The hope is that no one is allocated the middle spot, giving the couple the whole row, with an extra seat between them.

While it’s undeniably a clever method, when it goes wrong, it can make things awkward, particularly if the couple decide that they’re happy in their allocated seats and don’t want to switch.

That puts a fellow passenger in the uncomfortable middle seat and, perhaps even less comfortably, in between a couple for the whole journey.

Sara Nelson, international president for the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said on Twitter that her and her friend were “a couple of flying fanatics who do this every time” because there’s a “better chance of getting the row to ourselves.”

However, she said she always offers to switch if an unfortunate person gets placed in the middle seat.

Tiktok travel expert @janelleonajet is also a fan of the method and said she always does it when travelling with a friend.

She said: “No one wants the middle seat, so there’s a chance no one buys the middle seat or gets placed in the middle seat between you and then you have a whole row to yourselves.

“If there’s an aisle seat open, 100 out of 100 times, that person is going to pick the aisle seat over the middle seat.”

However, other people aren’t as happy about people using it to try and get extra legroom, particularly those who aren’t happy when it goes wrong.

Cornell University PhD student Elissa Domingo Badiqué told the Washington Post: “Just know that you tried to game the system and lost. Take the loss gracefully.

“Please do not try to make the person in the middle seat suffer because you didn’t get what you wanted.”

A Twitter user agreed with Elissa, saying that if people want to sit together, they should book seats together.

They wrote: “Remember kids, if you want to sit next to your wife on a plane, buy two seats that are actually next to each other instead of expecting strangers to accommodate your bad planning.”

Sometimes the method can backfire on the couple, with people choosing to sit in between the pair.

One Twitter user, Zack Bornstein, told his followers about the time he and his wife tried the method, only for someone to be sat between them.

Zack offered to switch seats, however, that passenger turned down the offer.

He said: “Losing my mind, just offered the aisle seat to the guy sitting between me and my gf on a flight, and he said he’d rather stay in the middle seat between us.”

Meanwhile, travel experts have shared a clever trick which gets you a row to yourself during a flight.

And this is the safest seat you can sit in if you’re in a plane crash.

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