Seat assignments

Most airlines give you the option of picking your seat as soon as you book online, many charge extra for this service, but some provide it free of charge. I'm flying Continental to Paris in September and was able to pick my seats as soon as I booked for free.

You can also do what I normally do, if I'm flying and don't want to pay. Log in exactly 24 hours before your flight when check in opens to get the best choice of the seats remaining, free of charge.

If you log into your account with the airline (I'm assuming you put your frequent flyer # in when you purchase), you can go to your itineraries and change your seat assignment daily or hourly to your hearts desire limited to what seats are available and which ones are blocked off since the airline is trying to sell it for more money.

Max, I'm afraid there is no one right answer. Each airline has a different practice for assigning seats. And more are charging for the privilege of securing seat assignments more than hours in advance. But these policies should be clear on the airline websites. It will just take some research for the options that work for you.

BTW, when you choose an airline, join its frequent flyer club if you're not already a member of it or an affiliate. That gives you a slight leg up. And I have had good luck calling the club number at off-hours when they're not too busy and begging them to "work with me".

Yep, you can change assignments yourself online from home right up to the time you check in and print your boarding pass. After that, you’ll still be able to request a change at the counter or gate desk if seats are available. Note that airlines can and do change seat assignments without notification all the time, so there’s a chance the seat you reserved is not the one you’ll end up with. I’ve had airlines change my seat assignment several times before a flight, but I’m usually able to change it to something else still acceptable (exception was a few weeks ago…got stuck in the last row back by lavatory with nowhere else to go...made seat assignment at purchase, they changed it to something worse, I changed it to something better when checking in online, and they changed it again before I arrived at gate…flight was full/actually overbooked at that point). Same thing happened when I flew to Madrid last November, but I was able to change assignments to something just as good as what I had originally reserved when I checked in online and it didn't change again. Just a tip so that you can keep on eye on it.