Do you go for the free lapchild seat?

[Matt]

I know, I’m a boring bastard – but you just bookmark this stuff now for when you grow up and have kids m’kay…. I spoke yesterday about how I had shifted my strategy towards frequent flyer programs by adding in Delta, SouthWest and JetBlue. I transferred enough Amex Membership Rewards for 3 JetBlue seats, even though our little cherub could fly for free (really free) as a lap infant.

Most parents will tell you – buy the damn seat. The reason is that you can feel confident that you can put the child into a car seat between entertaining them in order for them to nap. Having done both with and without a car seat, I can say its pretty helpful, though we managed to get from New York to Spain without one (even if it meant I had to stand for a while as someone stole the seat….

Stealing my Lie Flat Seat and making the most of it


Anyway, back to JetBlue. After making the transfer, I decided at the last minute to only ‘buy’ 2 seats, a window and an aisle, in the hope that we might get lucky and have a free middle seat. Below is our seatmap (we are in row 8A and 8C – I have a funny feeling that across the aisle from us are some other savvy travelers….

JetBlue Shows seat map, we are in 8A and 8C


As you can see, the plane is almost empty, and if you were going to select a seat you’d think it wouldn’t be in the middle when there are so many windows and aisle open right?

Strategy


So the goal is to get all three in a row, and then hope for the best, you approach the gate and ask if there is anyone assigned to that seat and if not could you please bring the car seat with you. When we did this last on an American Airlines flight they moved the other person out of his middle seat (which he didn’t mind at all) so we were free to use it.

We’ve done this twice, and had issues both times. So it isn’t plain sailing. The first time we did it the gate attendant opened up the middle seat for us, but then sometime between then and the 15 minutes before the gates closed someone was assigned that seat. It was a really stupid thing because there were at least 8-10 open seats, including further down the plane in Aisles and Windows, which were much more desirable. However, we had just installed the car seat into the middle when the passenger came up with a boarding pass, and we looked like we were stealing his seat. Cause a bit of a stir, but he moved and was ok about it all.

The second time (the return trip) the plane was just chock full and we had no option to make this happen. However, we just gate checked the car seat and made the best of it. I’m pretty sure it should go smoother than that, but it’s good to see the screw ups so you have perspective.

Tracking the flight


I don’t have an automated tool for this, but i’ll be dropping in periodically to check the seats on the plane and how busy it is. With some airlines, such as American Airlines I make a dummy booking and get as far as ‘choose your seat’ before bailing out again. I have found that searching for a revenue ticket is better since American and other carriers list different inventory for Award Seats vs All Seats. IE you could look at the plane and seat only 3 award seats left, but the cabin is still empty. If this JetBlue flight should start filling up, I’ll go back and buy the other seat.

Conclusion


I have the miles, but I am just being a big cheapie. A penny saved is a penny earned and all that…. I wasn’t going to go for the free seat in this case, but with so many empty ones it seems very unlikely that I’d need to pay for the seat. The way I see this worst case scenario I do pay, and perhaps the price in points increases (it is demand based pricing) or really really worse case I have to sit with him as a free lapchild. The duration of flight (3hrs 45 mins) makes that something I can live with at a push.

The post Do you go for the free lapchild seat? appeared first on Travel.

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[Josh F]

When my kids were young <1 they sat on our laps (feel free to call cps on us). After 1 we did lap seats for short flights (we're economical too) but got own seats for long flights (e.g. redeye back to east cost for Hawaii... sometimes you have to cough up the $ to get some sleep.

 

[Matt]

When my kids were young <1 they sat on our laps (feel free to call cps on us). After 1 we did lap seats for short flights (we're economical too) but got own seats for long flights (e.g. redeye back to east cost for Hawaii... sometimes you have to cough up the $ to get some sleep.

My plan is to never have him on our laps if at all possible, but I won't buy arbitrarily. I think with the upcoming CUN flight we will be fine, but I'll monitor it and buy a seat if it is necessary.

 

[Pat]

Actually we have done it once for an international trip on American Airlines 2 months ago. The flight was not full at all so we have booked one windows and one aisle seat (with an open middle seat for the baby). However, the middle seat would always be shown as reserved a few days after we selected the seats (and we changed seats a few times). At the end, we get the empty middle seats for the baby on all but one flight segments in the whole trip.

 

[Robby Stephenson]

Southwest is really good about allowing you to use a car seat if the plane is not full. And with them not assigning seats, there's no danger of another passenger getting stuck in between. Families board in-between the A and B groups, of course, which (from my experience) means you can always find a full empty row for 3 people.

 

[Matt]

Southwest is really good about allowing you to use a car seat if the plane is not full. And with them not assigning seats, there's no danger of another passenger getting stuck in between. Families board in-between the A and B groups, of course, which (from my experience) means you can always find a full empty row for 3 people.

I'm finally getting on the Southwest thing, I think with the CP the travel for 3 of us there will be great. Do they have unassigned seating?

 

[Erin]

We flew PHX-DUB last fall with a 13 month old that had no seats PHX-ORD and the bulkhead "bassinet" ORD-DUB. It worked OK but she wasn't walking at the time and was therefore slightly more content to sit with us. I was fairly disappointed with the bassinet that turned out to be a cardboard box that hung on the bulkhead, we didn't even bother with it on the return flight.

 

[Josh F]

I'm finally getting on the Southwest thing, I think with the CP the travel for 3 of us there will be great. Do they have unassigned seating?

You can pay extra for Early Board Check-In (EBCI) ($12.50/pp) which generally gets you a mid to high A Number since it auto checks you in at T-36 (so RT should be $25/pp). Otherwise, your boarding # is based on your spot in online check-in. I hover and literally check in at the T-24 mark on the dot. Since I book with points, I have to check in 4 confirmations individually - so I try to be as absolutely fast as possible. I usually get high A's to low B's with some gaps (you're supposed to board with the lowest ticket). The good news is that they let families (I believe they define as having kids < 5, but not positive) board at the end of the A Group. At the end of the A Group, you won't have any problems boarding together. So my thought is if you have young kids, skip EBCI. If you can check in at exactly T-24, skip EBCI. If you can't, then pay for EBCI. A common (but questionable) tactic is to pay for 1 person to have EBCI and have them save seats... and save $. The risk is that if you are connecting and your first flight is delayed, you may miss your boarding group, in which case, good luck.