Be Aware of Full Service International Airlines Charging for Seat Selection When Comparing Prices

neil on 24/07/2018 - 15:16
Last edited 25/07/2018 - 10:53

I knew budget airlines flying internationally like Scoot & Air Asia charge seat selection fees but didn't realise full service airlines have been/are now starting to charge with Etihad the most recent one to add seat selection charges. As I'll be flying overseas soon on MH and require 4 flights, this adds up to an extra $75.20 per person ($18.50/$19.50 per leg) for standard seats. The extra $75.20 would possibly made it cheaper to fly on another airline.

Something to be aware of when comparing prices. Usually with these airline trends, the rest of the industry follows.

I've put together a list of international airlines (long-haul) that charge fees AFAIK as of 24/7:

  • Air France/KLM (20€ / ~$32 but free within 30 hours)
  • British Airways ($40.80 AUD, Free within 24 hours)
  • Cathay Pacific ( HKD300 or $39 USD / $53 AUD for Lower Fare Tickets)
  • Etihad ($25 USD / ~$34 AUD)
  • Finnair (8€-14€ / ~$13-~$22 AUD)
  • Iberia ($15 USD / $21 AUD)
  • LOT Polish Airlines ($25 USD / ~$34 AUD)
  • Lufthansa Group ($35 USD / ~$48 AUD)
  • Malaysia Airlines (~$18.50-$19.50 AUD)
  • Qantas ($35 AUD for sale tickets, $0 for others)
  • SAS ($12-$28 USD / ~$16-$38 AUD)
  • Singapore ($13.60 for Lite (e.g. sale fares), $0 for economy)
  • South African Airways ($10-$25 USD / ~$14-$34 AUD)

Hopefully that will be helpful to some. Virgin, United, Singapore, all the Chinese airlines don't seem to charge…yet.

Some references: The Points Guy

Travel Airfare Seat Selection

Comments

  • [Deactivated] on 24/07/2018 - 15:17
    +5

    Thanks for the psa

  • geek001 on 24/07/2018 - 15:32
    +1

    These airlines do charge for seat selection, but when flying full service airlines, in my experience, at least I haven't been made to sit separately from my kids yet. With budget airlines, they almost always make you sit separately if you didn't do seat selection, with AirAsia being the worst offender. Seriously, I am pretty sure they programmed it into their system to split people up on purpose to make more money.

    • Mister LoLPants on 25/07/2018 - 09:41

      With singapore, they dont charge you for seat selection if you are travelling with kids. i guess that helps then get around possible splitting of families, which for long haul would be unacceptable for everyone

    • SlickMick on 25/07/2018 - 10:51

      That's never happened to us, on dozens of flights, but I do see other couples shouting to each other across the plane. I always thought they chose separate seats hoping to score an empty seat beside them, but maybe it's this, and we've just been lucky??

      • geek001 on 25/07/2018 - 11:45

        On budget airlines? Especially AirAsia?

        • SlickMick on 27/07/2018 - 09:33

          yeah we fly air asia mainly, also scoot and jetstar. It was a recent air asia flight that several couples were communicating across the plane.

    • samfisher5986 on 25/07/2018 - 11:16

      But when there isn't any free seats available to seat you all together, what then?

      • geek001 on 25/07/2018 - 11:52

        With adult tickets, adults do not need to be seated together. It becomes a problem when they split 4 people up into 4 different parts of the plane, when they have full knowledge that the 2 of the passengers are children, since we bought child tickets. Still talking about AirAsia here, happened to me multiple times, so it forces me to buy seat selection when I check-in online.

        With full service airlines, if they can't seat us together, they usually split the group up into 2-2. Not, 1-1-1-1 or 1-1-2.

        • SlickMick on 27/07/2018 - 09:45

          I certainly will never pay their extra charges, but I've decided I won't just sit there and take it any more either. So if they don't give me an isle seat, I won't sit patiently rather than disturb the person beside me, I'll get up every time I want. And if my family gets seperated, we'll all get up and get together in the aisle.

          My apologies in advance for the nuisance I know we'll be, but I reckon airasia policies are unreasonable and need to change. If they end up with more people standing than sitting, I'm sure they'll lose business, and might reconsider.

          I can't believe their latest: not allowing access to any water after their final screening in KL, then making us go 8 hours with no water unless we pay AUD$8/litre.

    • shadowangel on 26/07/2018 - 11:06

      That's not right at all, when you have groups of people it's harder to find seats. It's just the way it is. You can check in early to try and prevent this from happening or purchase seats.
      Me & my partner have never been split, even on separate tickets they try to accommodate.

  • Godric on 24/07/2018 - 15:36

    Sharks

  • scottishdave on 24/07/2018 - 15:43

    I usually pay for an extra legroom seat and found the cost varies quite a bit between airlines too.

    Qatar has a number of cheap fares at the moment but I found that I couldn't pre-book an extra legroom seat. It has to be done at the airport.

    • smalltime0 on 25/07/2018 - 14:43

      If by 'extra legroom' you mean the emergency row, that's technically required.
      If you get to the airport and you don't look physically capable of operating the emergency exit alone, they're suppose to bump you from the seat.

  • Pootie Tang on 24/07/2018 - 15:45

    Within 24 hours - no charge for seats.

    • neil on 24/07/2018 - 15:47

      Which airline?

      • Pootie Tang on 24/07/2018 - 16:08
        +1

        I'd like to say all but have not flown all of them. Etihad, Emirates, Qantas and Air NZ from experience.

        They all play on the human psyche of fomo, works as well.

      • tranter on 15/08/2018 - 20:08

        It's free to select seats for all passengers on Cathay Pacific within 48 hours of departure.

        • neil on 15/08/2018 - 21:22

          Appears to be the case for Malaysia Air as well, basically when check-in opens.

    • brentl on 24/07/2018 - 16:04

      True but what I tend to find with Qantas they will let you select 5 seats for free but most of them rubbish ones, not a single window one. Most in the middle of the plane.

      • peterpeterpumpkin on 24/07/2018 - 19:22

        As long as it's an aisle seat in the middle segment, it's the best for loners that can't sleep, since you'll theoretically have the least interruptions standing up for strangers while having unlimited freedom for personal loo breaks.

        • Pootie Tang on 25/07/2018 - 08:31

          Upcoming Europe trip with Emirates was about $1300 + $700 in exit seat fees.

        • SlickMick on 27/07/2018 - 09:52
          +1

          I found the back of plane good on a recent airasia flight - where the plane narrowed at seats reduced from 3x3x3 to 2x3x2 - the isle is almost twice as wide. The guy behind me had 1 leg down the isle beside my seat, and wasn't in the road of the trolley.

    • furys12 on 25/07/2018 - 07:45
      +2

      Thing to remember here though is when that 24 hours ticks over, everyone who hasn't picked a seat is assigned one and then it's free to change it to any remaining seats, flight might look half empty at 24:00:01 out but at 23:59:59 there could be one free seat. It's not a great way to get a good seat

      Confirmed on BA and have been told it's the same on many others

  • Wystri Warrick on 24/07/2018 - 16:06
    +1

    Thanks neil!

    Planning an os trip in October, I'll definitely be watching out for these fees :).

  • Godric on 24/07/2018 - 17:08
    +5

    Did someone report an Admins post? :O

    Balls

    • neil on 24/07/2018 - 17:11

      Someone requested this be made into a wiki. Good idea!

      • Godric on 24/07/2018 - 17:37

        Ah! That's cool

      • peterpeterpumpkin on 24/07/2018 - 19:30
        +3

        I love the idea of wikis but I think OzBargain's Wiki section is a failure.

        (i) I don't think most people know about it or even how to find it. Like the rest of the custom pages.
        (ii) due to lack of awareness of its existence, it's often out-of-date and restricted to the opinions of a handful of people. I'm guilty of forgetting about it until it's brought up.
        (iii) I'm out and on mobile now, but are wikis even suggested to those posting duplicate forum titles?

        • neil on 24/07/2018 - 20:36

          (i) Wiki is linked to the Pages Menu and some pages are featured in that menu. Any suggestions to better advertise them?
          (ii) True, it's a lot of effort for 1 person to maintain a page and most of the edits to pages are done by 1 person with the exception of Birthday Deals & eGift Cards. So I do agree a wiki page would be great, I don't want to commit myself to making a page that I have to maintain by myself.
          (iii) Not sure what you mean?

        • peterpeterpumpkin on 24/07/2018 - 22:05

          @neil:
          I suppose featuring the wiki page, certain wikis (and even the birthday deals page) on the front page on a consistent basis might help to advertise it. It doesn't necessarily have to be "above-the-fold" but it might help to have it interspersed among the deals. Saying that, it might just be habit, but ever since the highlighted competitions section was introduced I've become too lazy to scroll down to the highlighted forum topics. So I understand it's hard to work with limited real estate.

          The wikis ad could feature a certain wiki (e.g. "Cards with No Overseas Transaction Fees") and could say something like "We welcome you to make contributions to any of our wikis".

          Personally, I would expect to find the non-wiki mobile plan deals, hotel deals and pizza deals in the existing Deals megamenu, but this might make the Deals menu a little too "mega" (they could be combined into a special group but this would mean extra clicks). The "Pages" top-level menu could be changed to "Wikis" to give it more prominence.

          With regards, to (iii), I've since done a test. Let's say I'm new to OzBargain and I want to know "Which cards is best for foreign transactions?". Naturally, the "Cards with No Overseas Transaction Fees" wiki should contain the answer and other users will probably mark the question as a duplicate and direct them to the Wiki anyway. However, unlike similarly worded forum topics that we have to declare as "Non Duplicate", there is no detection of potential wikis that could be read before posting the topic. You could even append a question to posted topics like "Think this topic belongs in a wiki? Contribute today!" And if similar keyworded wikis are detected, they can be mentioned.

          This of course assumes OzBargain/scotty wants a full-on high-engagement wiki. There are a lot of gotchas e.g. full-time job for moderators to stay on top of 1000s of user edits, information is easily added but rarely deleted when no longer relevant (problem because expectations are higher for "active" wikis), copyright issues from unquoted user-submitted copy-pastes and the "perceived" learning curve ("what's a wiki?").

  • madreece on 24/07/2018 - 17:16

    $110 Aud For BA business class seat reservation from US to UK. What a joke.

    • Doyen on 24/07/2018 - 17:43
      +1

      I think it is a stretch to call BA a full service airline. Charging for meals, coffee and even water in economy on international flights doesn't sound full service anymore.

  • nubix on 24/07/2018 - 17:45

    Singapore charges USD$5 for seat selection on the cheapest fares too

    • neil on 24/07/2018 - 17:51

      There are 2 economy classes of tickets Standard & Flexi that I can see. Just did a test booking and both have free seat selection. (AU-Singapore flights at least)

      • nubix on 24/07/2018 - 17:55

        Should be one called Lite, doesn't allow cancellations at all.

        • neil on 24/07/2018 - 17:56

          Ah, found it. You have to find a date where there is a sale and there is Economy Lite with seat selection fees of $13.60 each way. More that $5!

  • nissa on 24/07/2018 - 18:23
    +1

    Emirates charge an amazing $120 per seat, per leg for the double seats at the back. (Our favourite)
    Choosing normal seats was $30.
    Most expensive are exit row $180 and comfort (towards the front I think) $80.

    As this is per leg the shorter legs are a bit cheaper but on a trip to Europe you'll be paying for two legs.
    After checkin opened we were able to change our allocated seats and actually changed to the desired doubles free.
    Unfortunately they weren't available on the return trip.

  • jason101 on 24/07/2018 - 19:02

    Anyone know if any of the listed airlines also have a family separation policy? I had an experience with Qantas sitting a child alone and refusing to move the child or an adult despite being told they don't sit children away from their parents (somewhat of a weird conversation when that is what had happened and they weren't willing/or able to correct it).

    • Dont Care on 25/07/2018 - 20:14

      Airlines will always make sure at least one parent and child are together. anything else depends on demand.

  • tomsco on 25/07/2018 - 07:31
    +1

    QANTAS only charging seat selection on sale fairs doesn’t sound like something the ACCC would like.

  • moocher on 25/07/2018 - 09:47

    Cathay Pacific seems to also charge a seat reservation fee of HKD300 or USD39 for "lower fare economy bookings". Info here

  • MITM on 25/07/2018 - 11:27
    +2

    EMIRATES recently charged me $50 + $30 for 2 sectors. A full service + extras airline.
    And business class was half empty - so no free upgrades at check-in (and got no email offer to upgrade).
    The 777 metal was the same as SCOOT - so no point of difference there.
    and wasn't impressed with the 40 minute "standing only' bus tarmac transfer from one terminal to another at DXB plus arriving 1.5 hours late. I'm done with Dubai. Bye bye Dubai.

    • nissa on 25/07/2018 - 14:14

      It's an amazing drive isn't it?
      Wondered where on earth they were taking us.

      • MITM on 26/07/2018 - 13:44
        +1

        Yes, driving past all the foreign Dnata workers waiting in the heat to start their slave labour shift.
        Dubai - it's all smoke and mirrors. The metro closed at 11:30pm and left us stranded, but 11:30pm is the coolest time of the day.
        Prices are crazzzzy. $7 polo shirts on sale. or $120 not on sale. $30 to go to the movies.

  • dane45 on 27/07/2018 - 15:01

    Virgin Atlantic charge too, unfortunately :(
    Still free to choose on check in though!

  • Doyen on 27/07/2018 - 15:45

    duplicate

  • doctordv8 on 28/07/2018 - 11:27

    Maybe there is an issue here for some, but in last 10 years, with a variety of airlines and especially around Asia but including to, thru and from Australia, our family of 4 were never separated once. Perhaps our booking early, checking in early and being lucky all played their part. Btw, we all have different surnames as well so the only info airlines had was our booking on the same page and ages to work with.

    Way back in the beginning, seats were allocated by the airlines. That is still the standard. If we /you want special treatment in this regard, then it is the way of the now and future - user pays.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join