Travel with Children - ExpertFlyer now has one free seat alert

On my latest trip, I had a situation with a lapchild where the only seats available were middle seats- not ideal.

I was happy to discover that expertflyer.com now offers a free level of membership that includes one free seat alert (at a time).

However, what was even more valuable to me was the fact that I could see how many "preferred plus" seats were still open when setting up the seat alert. (This was on American.) Instead of stressing and possibly purchasing a seat, I could see that there were quite a few seats that would open up at the 24 hour mark if they were not selected in the meantime. When they did, we got two seats in the same row- no problems.

You'll need to understand how and when "premium" seats open up on your airline, but I hadn't seen this application of ExpertFlyer discussed before, so I thought I would mention it.

Is there a reason for posting this on the Children board?? I'll keep it here if you want & can explain (i.e. free seat for lap baby??)

Is there a reason for posting this on the Children board?? I'll keep it here if you want & can explain (i.e. free seat for lap baby??)

It seems that there are frequent discussions of not being able to select seats together for families here on the travel with children board.

ExpertFlyer has been recommended in the past, but it was always a pay subscription. The ability to get one seat alert for free is a helpful tool, not only to be able to snag an aisle or window seat (better for trading to get the family together!) when it opens up, but also to be able to get some idea of how many seats on the plane have truly been selected and which ones just appear to be filled to us non-elite members.

I found it useful in gauging whether or not it would be worth it (for me) to pay for a seat v. gambling that there would, in fact, be seats that open up at check in.