Originally Posted by
fumje
Sometimes you can get more room in Y than in F these days.
Maybe it's just my luck (or a little bit of gall) but more often than not in the last 9 months I've found myself on the 1-side of 1-2 configured planes or with an empty seat next to me. Most surprisingly, my last ORD-CLE 2B was one of only 2 open seats in the cabin and had been booked/unavailable last time I looked at it (100% of the UG list was cleared)
Originally Posted by
zombietooth
I did try that tack early in the pandemic (FEB/MAR/APR) and was often sadly disappointed that the empty row in E+ that I selected the night before the flight invariably seemed to fill-up with standbys at the gate. In late APR and early MAY, having no success with PlusPoint UGs, I started buying F outright and, because I am curious about whether my strategy was sound, I always look at the seat map on the APP right before takeoff to see if E+ went out with empty rows. What I found was that E+ was full 90+% of the time, so taking a chance on a light load in Y just isn't worth it for me. The routes I am flying are typically high-demand routes e.g. EWR-SNA, EWR-LAX etc. so that obviously has a negative impact on E+ availability in my case.
I never expect the seat next to me to remain open, but for most of the past year when I know the flight is lightly loaded and the seat next to me is open at T-60-ish I haven't been too shy to ask about asking at the gate "What do you think the chances are of seat XX staying open?" or some very polite variation.
A few times the seat has been explicitly blocked, other times just "pretty good (wink)" but 100% of the time so far I've not had a neighbor germing me up. Of course, I don't even think of asking if the flight is more than ~70% based on the seat map, but I throw this in the category of "if you don't ask you won't receive"