“A Modest Proposal to Boycott Seat Selection Fees”
Jeff Edwards June 21, 2019
Young woman in international airport at check-in counter, giving her passport to an officer and waiting for her boarding pass
A FlyerTalker recently posed a fascinating question, “What if there was an initiative to boycott paid advance seat selection that gained massive/viral traction?” Alongside a few especially jaded dismissals of the very notion, a thought-provoking debate about the nature of consumer leverage and the laws of supply and demand ensued.
FlyerTalk member MasterGeek raised an interesting issue: What if passengers simply refused to pay just one of the new fees airlines seem to invent by the day? Would airline executives realize the error of their ways or would consumers eventually lose their resolve causing an inevitable return to business as usual?
“What if there was an initiative to boycott paid advance seat selection that gained massive/viral traction? Will airlines stop charging for advance seat selection?” the user queried. “To me charging for seat selection is like to making travelers bid against each other for the desirable seats, but if travelers collude and constitute a collective collaborative bloc, perhaps there will be change.”
The consensus of those responding on the forums overwhelmingly leaned toward the “probably will never know” camp. A few FlyerTalkers also took a decidedly more Ayn Rand view of daring to question one’s high-ranking corporate betters in airline boardrooms.
In fact, there are already a handful of efforts on social media to protest unfair fees levied on travelers. The online group “Kill Resort Fees” urges travelers not only to avoid hotels charging often hidden resort fees but also encourages guests to dispute the charges with credit card companies, take hotels to court and file complaints with the Fair Trade Commission (FTC). The Twitter group ExitRowForTheTall is more about shaming airlines for charging taller passengers extra fees to sit in exit rows and extra legroom seats but occasionally stops just short of advocating boycotts of certain carriers. Based on the growing number of travelers subject to airline seat selection fees and hotel resort fees, it isn’t clear how much headway either group is making.
With a few notable historic exceptions, consumer boycotts haven’t been especially successful (if they were effective, then The Simpsons might have been canceled decades ago). In the age of social media, however, joining a boycott can also mean easily connecting with like-minded peers. While expecting consumers to remain disciplined is a big ask, networking with those who share your same concerns can be a remarkably powerful way to effect change.
Is a boycott over seat selection fees worth the effort or are consumers already getting exactly what they wanted in rock bottom fares with a slew of a la carte fees? The at- times contentious debate (and a bonus discussion of “Newton’s Law of the Online Forum”) continues here.
[Featured Image: Shutterstock]
When your corporation is paying the bill, then it is a better seat that costs you nothing. In fact, you put it on a Point bearing CC and get more points because of the cost. If your are older like me...did you stay over a Saturday night...get your corp. a lower fee, and cost you an upgrade cert use, more points on your cc, etc? Not likely. The offset was getting points at a hotel if you did the Saturday (occasionally I did that) to hit a level with the hotel. Playing points and status is a great game. As was said before, some get a free seat because of their status. Now I am retired, and long enough to loose all status, I am more interested in costs. I don't want to pay for a specific seat, BUT my wife of 45 years is not too keen on sitting in different parts of the plane! So I too, usually have to pay something. Infrequent flyers do not even know about seat selection, seat guru, and added fees. Just give them the cheapest price. People that pay for high end food delivery, starbucks coffee, 3 dollar water (don't drink from the tap and certainly not the hose!), use premium fuel for a car that does not need it, drive a $70000 truck back and forth to work, pay for a lousy rated $5000 refrig., etc are not worried about a bit more to pick there seat. The "rich" fall in this category too. Then there is the issue of size. Tall must pay extra for there legs. Wide cannot buy 2 cheap seats, they must buy a business or first seat to accommodate there width, or impose there body in coach on their neighbors. There are many more categories, but I don't see a boycott working! Not with the growing traveling public in the USA and other countries. Not with this economy.
I've never paid an extra fee for seat selection, have always received this from mileage plan status. So, YES, I would very much like you all to boycott this, and make those seats MORE available to those of us with status in mileage plans. Because we don't get the free upgrades and exit row seats when all the rest of you are paying for these seats!!! (Apparently our corporate travel dept. doesn't do basic economy, and even before flying enough to gain "status", was still able to choose aisle row seats near the front, I know from checking prices independently there are always better deal than what's listed on corporate travel site, but I think company is more concerned about being able to refund or reuse tickets than getting best possible rate.) (and they reimburse luggage fees, so I always checked my bag. Of course with mileage plan status, that's free now also).
To be honest, if travelling on my own, I never book a seat in advance and take whats on offer at the time of check in. With some carriers, even Easyjet, you get allocated seats at booking so no issue there. Same with Charter flights, although they offer the "best" seats at a price, seats I think are allocated at time of booking. However, BA takes the biscuit, and since we don't have status, I was rather miffed that to get the seats we wanted in CW so we didn't have those dreadful middle seats facing backwards we used up some AVIOS points. However, for flights we have next year in J with Qantas and emirates we have already got our seats booked and we had a choice - thats the way to treat your customers.
Sounds like different folks are talking about different fees - some airlines charge to select any seat, then others charge just to get a better seat (even in the same class), then others (i.e. have work arounds (you can pay to check in "first" on Southwest, that will enable you to select a better seat - this is still a fee for a better seat , just not called that). It is buyer beware...consumers have set the expectation they will buy the cheapest fare - often without calculating in the extra fees - if you care about them then do the research to understand them and include them in your choice of airline/route. They aren't going anywhere....
I personally don't object to paying a small, reasonable fee for seat selection, especially long haul, but I do object to some airlines taking the mickey for normal economy class seats. When you are paying for a family it can quite a significant extra fee. For example my family of four flew BA from Manchester to Kuching Malaysia via LHR and KUL. Athough you can book seat 24hrs ahead for free any further ahead than this and they are extortionate BA wanted £27 to book a seat for the short hop from Manchester to Heathrow, which I didn't pay and £41 for normal economy class seats from Heathrow to KL per person. Many other airlines you can bag extra legroom seats for much less. I think if people boycotted it, then the airlines would just have to get the money back from somewhere else. ie cutting standards or increasing fares. I do think that the cost of seat booking should be made clearer when making the actual booking.