Originally Posted by
sethweinstein
Thank you for doing the right thing. I was invited to a wedding and my partner wasn't; our relationship didn't "count" because we weren't married
Yeah, that's pretty close to the pinnacle of tacky. I was invited to a wedding once, and even got a follow-up call stating that the invitation was for 1 only. I said no. Figured it was a simple fishing expedition for money or a gift, which I did not send.
Originally Posted by
Peoriaman1
I sometimes get the late boarder who is faced with nothing but available middle seats, and invariably they want me to move to accomodate their spouse/partner/friend/co-worker (and thus give up my window seat) so that they can sit together. My answer is always No if it involves me moving to a middle seat anywhere else on the plane. Ain't happening, sorry, no. One small advantage of open seating is that this situation is much less prevalent on Southwest than it is elsewhere, because on the other airlines, the seat-swapper-wannabe already has a connection to said middle seat; the spouse/partner/friend/co-worker is assigned to some other middle seat elsewhere. Sorry; not my problem if you booked late and all that were left were middles.
Yeah, I've gotten these too... I was responding to a poster who was sort of suggesting that airlines (or Southwest in particular) was demanding that single travelers move to accommodate couples (presumably under threat of being denied boarding without compensation). That is not the case.
Originally Posted by
Betterthanyou
I find swap requests more common on WN because of the terrible "open seating" system. Nobody has a BP with a seat on it, nobody has paid more for THAT seat (even if they paid more to board early). The only claim you can make is "I boarded before you..if you want to sit next to your companion..get an A pass next time". I find it the height of cheek to board with the C's find only middles left, and demand someone in an aisle or window who boarded way earlier move just because they are alone. This also exacerbates the "seat saving" problem on WN.
Nobody NEEDS to sit with their companion if they don't have special needs..and if they do, get a pre-board.
I always say no.
I get it much more often on legacy carriers than Southwest, and I fly a lot of both. Southwest's system actually somewhat minimizes the total number of people who are split up - both with the open seating and the fact that a *modest* amount of seat-saving is generally accepted on Southwest. (I don't want to open that whole can of worms - Lord knows we have enough seat-saving threads on WN - but saving a middle seat in the back is generally acknowledged as okay.)
On a legacy, whole traveling parties that consist of non-elites are in scattered middles all over the place. Inevitably some of them start trying to bum trades off of people. It's a nuisance.
I'm okay doing a trade with someone who is polite and offering me a neutral or better seat. The people who have all middles just need to stow their bags and sit down in their seat assignments.