I have my first flight as an F9 Elite coming up this weekend, flying SFO-DEN-DCA with wife and two young kids. I'm just wondering if there are any F9 Elite members or others who have flown out of SFO or DCA on F9 who can help me know what to expect.

For example, on their website it says that Elite's get priority check-in, priority security access, and priority boarding "where available." Are these services available at SFO and DCA? I've searched online but with no luck. If they are available, could I bring my family through the elite security line with me? This could make a significant difference since we can't use Pre-Check when flying F9.

I'm also curious as to whether or not you can pay to change seats after checking in and being randomly assigned seats as we usually do when flying Spirit and Allegiant (this way we only end up paying for 1 seat assignment rather than 3).

I'm familiar with all other aspects of the ULCC experience, but would appreciate any insights that would help our experience to go more smoothly.

Congratulations!

Not sure if you can pay to change after checking in, but you can get the GA to change your seats at the gate for no fee, depending on availibity and whether the GA has time. Not sure how you manage to pay for only one seat assignment, theoretically each member of your party could be seated in a different middle seat requiring at least 2 relocations to match a kid and a parent. I always pay for a seat assignment so no help.

Thanks for the insight. Good to know that the GA can change seats for no fee. In that case I may pay for the seat assignment for the first leg and then hold off for the second and see if the GA can assign them at the airport.

Regarding paying for one seat, I was just thinking that if all three are scattered, I can pay to move wife by the son's seat and then use my free seat assignment to move to the other seat ( supposing one of our seats is in an empty row) thereby only paying for one seat assignment.

Since those who pay for or have free seat assignments generally select window or aisle seats it seem likely that many "random"assignments will be middle seats. Also some here have sais Frontier assigns seats "randomly" from the back of the plane. I know that when Southwest/Airtran had a similar policy they "randomly" assigned seats from front to back.

Just to be clear this is at the option of the GA to allow people to change seats. I haven't had a problem but I've never flown with party of 4.

I don't like to be someone who depends on other people any more than necessary so while it would be nice to have the GA assign seats together I don't want to have to depend entirely on them to do so. Based on your suggestions my plan is to start watching to seat map at T-24 as others check in but hold off checking in unless it gets to the point where there are no empty rows (while there are 4 of us flying, 1 is a lap child so we just need one row of three).

Since one is a lap child we have to go to the counter anyways to get a boarding pass so if we could hold off on checking in until then I think we'd have a good chance at the agent assigning us eats together then if still available. I'll continue checking the seat map periodically up until this time and then go ahead and check in and purchase seats if it looks like there won't be any empty rows. Most people would say that this isn't worth the $36 I'd save by just paying for seats but I would respond that I get more than $36 of satisfaction by feeling like I'm beating the airline

Worst case scenario, I'm sure I can get at least two seats together so one of us can sit by the young child. I'll be sure to update based on results and whether or not you can change seats after checking in.