Snag The Best Economy Seats In The Air

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 468
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Just because you are determined to travel via cheap travel deals such as cheap airplane tickets, cheap vacation packages, or discount travel packages does not mean that you have to passively accept the worst seat on a plane.

The following are ways according to Smarter Travel of getting the best possible coach seats:

• Keep checking before departure to see if better seats open up. This can be done by checking your reservation and the flight’s seat chart hourly. Given that the best seats are usually held by frequent fliers, they are often upgraded to business class or at least one of them cancels at the last minute.

Start checking open seat availability a couple of days prior to departure. Remember once you check in online you are not able to change your seat until you get to the airport.

• If you don’t want to spend the time to keep checking your reservation, create a seat alert via the website ExpertFlyer. There is no charge for a single seat alert. If you are looking for multiple alerts, additional ones can be purchased for 99 cents or you can sign up for a Basic or Premium account, ...
... starting at $4.99 per month.

• By paying extra, most airlines allow passengers to upgrade their coach seats. Before agreeing to do so make certain what is being offered (such as extra legroom) is worth the money. Some airlines, including American, charge just for placing passengers towards the front of the plane, without any additional perks.

• Be super friendly to the gate agents. Bringing them a box of chocolates never hurts. Better coach seats often become available at the gate as frequent fliers are upgraded to premium seats. Such vacated seats in coach are often in an exit row or bulkhead.

• Do you best to earn elite frequent flier status. Airlines typically only allow their frequent fliers to sit in the most desirable rows. To attain elite status you usually will need to fly 25,000 actual air miles in a calendar year on one airline and/or its partners. Be diligent monitoring your miles and do not throw out any boarding passes until your miles have been posted.

• To determine when seats are best on specific planes go to a websites such as “SeatGuru” or “SeatExpert”. Both sites identify the best seats on every plane and list how much legroom and pitch each seat has. They also state if there are power ports or personal TVs with each seat.
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