Did you ask to see his BP?

I usually get the FA involved - it takes away the unpleasantness of the whole thing.. if they ask me if I want to swap, I usually say no and that I had picked that seat when I checked in..

May I see your boarding pass, sir?

Oh, that's over there. Let me show you to your seat. Would you like me to help you with your bag?

Oh, I'm sorry, I need this seat for frequent visits to the rest room.

Lame excuse. You can still make frequent visits to the rest room, and no one can say no to you without looking like a callous a-hole. (Someone may offer to trade seats mid-flight)

Travel tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/travel.htm

I've had it happen a few times, but only one still brings a smile to my face.

I was boarding a SAS flight IAD-CPH in C and I have my standard window seat. I'm one of those people that just never gets up during a flight. I get up before landing so I can brush my teeth and freshen up, other than that I never move, so windows are important to me so people aren't crawling over me.

I get to my seat and there is a gentleman there mid-30s and he's all settled in. I said, "um, excuse me sir, I believe you may be in my seat." He has a glint in his eye (like he knows what I'm saying) and starts shaking his head (like he doesn't understand) and speaking in German. Then he looks back at his book.

So, I started again, "Um excuse me..." then I point to me, I point to the seat number, I point to the seat and I point to my boarding pass. Then he says, "Can I sit next to the window?" in great English. Uggghhh...um, NO.

"I'm sorry, I'd really like that seat." He gets up in a huff, goes to speak to one of his traveling companions all the while pointing to me. Later in the flight, whenever one of his guys would come over and speak to him, there'd be lots of loud angry German and pointing to me (while I'm sitting about 6 inches away). I just smiled serenely to all of them, put my head phones and mask on and dozed away.

I think he figured by looking at me (being young and female) I would just shrug my shoulders and give him the seat.

I flew EWR-MAD on Aug. 17. I had prebooked an aisle seat. When I got there, a Spanish man tried to usher me into the middle seat (as if he were doing a courtly `after you' gesture). He showed me his boarding pass. I pointed out that E was the middle seat. He still hemmed and hawed, but finally took it (but also tried to get the aisle seat of the woman in G, who likewise refused him). After that, I was somewhat worried that if I dozed off, he might try to get into my purse. I noticed he didn't try to get the aisle seat of the man next to him.

Only time this ever happened to me was when my hubby and I were making a tight connection on Delta through Atlanta. We boarded with just minutes to spare before they closed the doors. Our seats were the last two at the back of the plane. We found another young couple there who had hoped the owners of the seats weren't going to show up. They made a big deal about having to move back to their assigned seats, but no way were we going to let them have the seats for a cross-country flight.

This also reminds me of another situation, not flight related. My parents and I were attending a Niners game that started at 1 pm on a Sunday. My father is a minister, so they couldn't leave until about 11:30 am for the park and it took us forever to get inside, park, get our tix (we had bought them from a friend of mine who works for the Niners), and find our seats. By the time we arrived, it was shortly before halftime and our seats were taken. The people actually asked if we could wait (standing in the aisle) since it was so close to halftime, but we made them get up and move to their seats behind us, since we had bought the seats. Of course, they were loud and drunk and talked about how rude we were the whole time. I've refused to go back to a live football game ever since.

It's never failed for me, though.

That line, however, was the conclusion of a proposed colloquy, if the elderly poacher made some lame excuse of his own. If "tight connections" work for you, be my guest.

Those too afraid of appearing "lame" end up in middle seats.

Now that is love.

Being polite goes a long way!! Years ago before reaching Silver on NW, I flew to LAS with my mom. My mom being in her 70's, I had requested a bulkhead seat for her. Upon entering the plane, a younger gentleman was in my mother's seat. Both boarding passes said 5A. The FA had asked him politely if he would give up his seat so an elderly person could sit there. He refused and said that this was "his" seat and was not moving. He was very upset that they would assign 2 people to the same seat. FA asked for both boarding passes and took them to the GA. So here we were standing in the aisle while others went around us to board. FA came back and said that you can stay in "your" seat. She turned to my mom and said to follow her. HER seat will be 2A. That made my day.

What a total Jerk! Am impressed on how you kept your cool and patience in dealing with this jerk.

I have had the similar run in with elderly people wanting the bulkhead (although in F). I was in 1C (my preferred seat) and an 80 yr old lady was in 1D. Her daughter (still 40 yrs older than me) just hovered in front of my for 15 min. No one asked me to move or implied I had to move, but I still felt like they were pressuring me to move. She was in 3C (not the end of the world although it was a transcon). Finally I figured this could get ugly and just asked her if she would like to sit in my seat. All she had to do was politely ask in the first place.

the good thing about letting the "uneducated" sit in FRONTof you instead of behind you is they will then not use YOUR SEAT BACK to steady themselves when they get up.

Though we can all list a whole bunch of flying pet peeves, having the person behind me grab my seat and just about launch me into the overhead is at the very top. And, they tend to grab harder if you are asleep. Idiots.

I've seen this happen twice (once before we pushed back, the other time was prior to takeoff, but we'd been taxiing for a couple minutes and had to turn around).

In a discussion of this on the NW forum, a couple people said the problem is that (at least in the case of NW) the BP scanner only checks the seat number, and does not look at the flight #. With the scanners in use, most GAs seem to look at the BPs only long enough to find the barcode--it doesn't seem like they actually read anything in most cases.

Boarding a flight from HGK to NRT, I walked back to one of my favorite seats on a 747. Seat 63A is the first row that has 2 instead of 3 seats between the window and the first aisle. The pax with the ticket for the aisle seat was sitting in my window seat, but he had no problem with moving at my request.

A few minutes later the GA walks up, asks my name and gives me a pass to the front of the plane! First time to be upgraded, and it's for a long international flight. I was thrilled. If I had moved over only one seat, no problem, but if I had moved out of sight and hearing range, would they try and find me or give the upgrade to someone else?