To Select a Seat or Not
 

Hi,

Just booked my first Frontier flight for my hubby and I. I did not pay to select our seats. I did register for their frequent flyer program and gave our seat preferences. What are our chances of getting our preferences, as to being assigned a middle seat? The flight is roughly 2 1/2 hours long. What has been everyone's experience, have you paid for your selection or did you gamble, if so how lucky were you?

Thanks

ML

I've never had trouble getting a Window seat (set in my preferences) at Check-In without paying. Just make sure to check in Online and not on the mobile app. (Interestingly I always get an aisle if I check in on the mobile device...)

If you booked together, I'm pretty certain it will simply assign 2 together which will include one middle seat, even if you guys have preferences set to window and aisle. Regardless, it should seat you together

It depends on how full the flight is and when you get your assignment. If you are early you pretty much get what you want. If you wait til the last minute you may not. A surprising number of people don't do anything until just before their flight,

I have the WN mentality and check in right at 24 hours. Will keep my fingers crossed for a couple of good seats.

I've actually noticed then when I check in right at 24 hours I end up in the way back. I have had better luck at around the 12 hour mark.

I believe their system assigns seats from back to front since the back seats are cheapest.

Thank you for that tip. Maybe I will keep an eye on the availability of seats before checking in.

Sneaky sneaky...

One of their elite perks, BTW, is being able to select all but the stretch seats free at booking time. Back when I had to do the random bit, though, I noticed I got the window seat (as in preferences) nearly always, though I set it to "rear window" to try to improve the odds.

Spirit has a nastier system but it doesn't appear "random" and it's helpful to see the seatmap before pulling the trigger on check in there. Have gotten far fewer middle seats since looking at all that, but then that just helps a difficult overall experience only by degrees.

Nice perk to select seat. Not sure if I will make it to elite.

before I made the elite status I never paid for a seat ... Just let them assign it at check-in.
I tried my best to check-in as early as possible.
My preference is an isle seat, and I always got one.

Doesn't $20 get you a pre-assigned forward seat on this airline and extra legroom to boot??? Why not do this on potentially full flights?

Both times when I checked in, I was assigned row 32. They assigned both my husband and I together, aisle middle. Once I did it T23 hours and the other time is was T11 hours.

Frontier definitely assigns seats from the back at the 24-hour mark. Makes sense, since they're still trying to SELL paid seat assignments during the check-in process. So there's zero incentive to check in at the 24-hour mark. It's always better to wait a few hours.

What I don't for sure is what happens when all the "cheap seats" behind the exit row get taken. If you have a party of 2 or more, will they give you the more expensive seats or break you up into middles and such? I haven't been willing to wait long enough to find out -- I don't really care if I'm in row 22 or row 12 -- I just want to avoid the random middles. This blogger did a more complete experiment:

https://www.pointswithacrew.com/get-...frontier-free/

If you want to sit next to each other I would leave the preference for one person blank. We like to sit together with a window and middle so select window preference for one person and leave preference for other passenger blank. We have always been seated together with a window and middle seat.

Of course if you want 2 windows or 2 aisles say so in you preferences.