NoStressHere

True.... If my arms, or shoulder or....need/want more room, why can I not BUY it?

WillCAD

If you actually need the room, you qualify as a COS under the policy:
As you can see, it doesn't simply say that you are a COS if you can't lower the armrest; it's more broad than that.

So, if you can lower the armrest but your shoulders or hips or legs encroach on your neighbor's seat, you qualify as a COS and can purchase the second seat.

This is pretty much my situation. Aside from the width of my butt, my shoulders are about 23-24 inches across. Since WN's seats are 17.5 inches wide, plus about two inches of armrest width, my shoulders encroach on the seat next to me no matter what. But I also can't get the armrest down and my legs are long enough that my knees tend to encroach as well.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with a non-COS purchasing two seats just to have an empty next to them, if they can afford it, though I wonder if it might not be more cost-effective to fly another carrier and upgrade to business or first. The problem is, there would be difficulty in both getting and keeping that second seat empty; COS pre-board so we we can find two seats together, and we get a reservation document to help us keep the seat empty. Even so, we have to fend off folks who want the seat (though in my case the only time I ever had any difficulty was with a deadheading WN pilot who asked me twice before he actually got it, "You bought two seats? You actually PURCHASED two seats?" as if he thought I was lying, despite holding the reservation document up in front of him where he could actually read it). Someone purchasing two seats out of preference rather than need wouldn't get to preboard, and might wind up finding himself with two purchased seats in different rows, defeating the whole purpose and causing all sorts of arguments.

justhere

Which protected class is being discriminated against? Tall, skinny dudes? People with big egos? Tired people who want to lay down? Seat savers?

kmersh

A little while back the wife and I were looking at heading west and Southwest had the lowest fare last minute by a fair margin. If we were going economy class, the wife and I wanted a little extra room to spread out, so we purchased an extra sea (even with that extra seat it was less than DELTA or AA were asking for two seats in economy). In fact we could not figure out how to book the extra seat on-line, but a simple call to Reservations and the agent was able to process our request without issue, she did not say it was impossible or not allowed (though I can clearly see from the above quoted rules that it is).

At the airport the agent had zero issue with us and said she wonders why more customers don't book an extra seat and since we had like A20-21-22 it worked out that we had an entire row to ourselves, ironically after the flight we did get a refund for third seat (which we never expected nor wanted) and I tried three times to get Southwest to suck back the money, but they claimed that they did not have the ability to do so, in fact the last Agent that I spoke with said that most customers call in demanding refunds and that she appreciated my honesty and that I should not worry about it.

I now realize that from reading this thread that Southwest refunds customers who require a COS seat but that due to the flight not being full are not required to pay for it, I guess we benefited from that even though neither my wife nor I am/are COS.

We have booked extra seats in Economy on other airlines (and it does not seem to be explicitly not allowed like Southwest clearly spells out) when we fly Southwest from now on we will NOT do so as we do not want to run afoul of their rules as we genuinely like Southwest.

WillCAD

Seems to me that you made an honest mistake in good faith, and Southwest made a mistake in good faith of believing you were booking under the COS policy. Honest mistakes all around, and everyone benefited.

Out of curiosity, under what name did you book the extra seat? Did you duplicate one of your names exactly, or did you book with a variation of one of yours, such as with different middle initials or Bob instead of Robert?

LegalTender

Your honesty absolutely deserved to be praised.

Airline seats have never been smaller, even as Americans have never been bigger.

The stigma is all that's shrinking.

kmersh

I do not remember exactly, I think they put an XS or something like that I honestly cannot remember, I know with UNITED where the wife and I have purchased an extra seat in the past the first name was EXTRASEAT and the last name was my last name.

WillCAD

Well, that explains the whole thing.

Booking the extra seat under your name with XS as the middle initial is the official method of booking an extra seat under the COS policy.

It's a little surprising to me that you got a refund for that seat automatically. I've always had to send an email request to get my refund.

kmersh

I was surprised too, trust me neither my wife nor I wanted a refund, we wanted to pay for the extra seat (4 hours it is nice to spread out), the way we look at it, the extra comfort is worth the price and when I spoke with the agent on the phone I was clear that I WANTED to buy the extra seat so that my wife and I could have some extra space, I did not say anything about COS or anything even remotely close to that. In fact thinking back on it, I explained that I was curious as how to book an extra seat as I could not figure out how to do it on the internet, she said no worries sir I can help you with that, would you like to me book the entire reservation for you, I said sure and she booked the entire reservation over the phone for me, first time that I have done that in years.

Regardless, I still feel a little bad about getting the refund, it is why I generally book WN between MCO and FLL instead of AA MCO-MIA and DAL-HOU instead of AA DFW-IAH to give them my business.

Seat Amigo

It seems that if Southwest desires small seats, they have to understand that this issue is going to crop up again and again. We agree with the previous poster, the definition of COS is starting to entrap many of us, as the seats get smaller. You wonder where the line is between profitability and uncomfortable seating.....it's getting closer.

LegalTender

If we only had an app that lets us know who we're sitting next to before we fly.

Looking for someone 22, loves to talk with older strangers, and smells great.

xliioper

While people may be getting wider, the seats are not actually getting any narrower (at least on WN -- see below). Since they realistically can't go 7 across on a 737, there would be no real point in shrinking the seat width (and the cross-section width is the same on all 737's).

https://thepointsguy.com/2015/04/air...ts-measure-up/

ursine1

Wait for it...

openfly

pmiranda

Since Southwest doesn't offer extended economy or business class, and sometimes have the only direct flights on a route, it'd be nice to be able to buy the seat in front of me so I could be guaranteed to be able to use my laptop and work on a flight. I suppose that's what the early boarding premium is for, but that doesn't guarantee an exit row or bulkhead.