On a recent Monarch flight with the family, 4 of us, booking seats in advance would cost £10 per person per flight.No thanks.
Kept an eye on the seats that were being bought using the online seating allocation and as there were always loads available we didn't prepay.
24 hours before the flight, check-in actually opened and I got all 4 of us seated together for nothing, both ways included.
Perhaps see if Ryanair does similar.
Wife managed to get 4 of us sat in a block of four on a Ryan Air trip to Dublin last month for nothing. 2 on one row and 2 on the next one for nothing using the online tool.
On a flight back from spain last week the girl next to me tried to book her, her partner and her child next to each other but she confused rows with columns (somehow!!!) so they all sat behind each other over 3 rows. Cost her £6 each not to seat next to each other. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Has anyone ever experienced *not* being sat with their travelling companions from the same booking?
From memory no. Unless seats are truly unallocated the airline system usually allocates seats to each person in the booking. Online when that check-in opens the shaded seats are allocated so not available. Not the same as shaded seats are all chosen for a fee by the passengers.
Could be wrong - but my experience indicates the above means people on the same booking will sit together as long as suitable blocks of seats exist when the booking is made. Earlier bookings will get better results.
Airlines state they will always place children with an adult.We were told when travelling that meant we might be sat 2 together and 2 elsewhere.
So on flights with a lot of kids, large groups of adults might have no chance of being sat together.
I imagine if 13 blokes booked on one booking the airline would probably want to separate them somewhat.
If the 13 actually booked separately it might be nigh on impossible for all to check-in and get seats together.
Flew back from Turkey last night
3 adults (mum,dad and gran I think) with 3 kids
The 3 kids and mum and dad were sat together. The gran was placed several rows behind. I think she argued for about 45 minutes with the air steward about being sat next to the rest of the party. The pilot politely told her to sit her arse down and if she said one more word about the seat situation would be making her own way home, received a round of applause as well from the rest of the passengers
So checked in as a group and it seems the first couple of people in the group (based on the order it wanted to check us in) got put in random seats, then the next lot of people (about 8 got sat in groups), then the last 3 people... 2 got sat together and the final person got put randomly lol.
love the way you'll all be spending £500 plus on a stag do and probably £5/6 a pint but think £8 to prebook a seat is madness.data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Yes with Thomson about 5 years ago. Didn't pay the pre-book upgrade on the package holiday and then when we checked in got allocated 4 seats all over the plane. This meant two 6 year olds would be travelling alone. When I pointed this out at check-in they said they will see what they could do but those were our issued seats.
When we got to the gate they did some changes and got us 4 end of isles, two on each side of the plane in a 3c, 4c, 4d and 5d type formation. This was a 4.5hr flight to Egypt.
I was a bit more relaxed than the other half on somebody else looking after our kids on the flight. Was told pretty sharpish to upgrade for the return!
Would have thought a bit of passenger self-rearrangement would be on the cards in these case data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
At least with the online check-in you know straight away what you seats are and I guess can then pay if necessary if you are not together.