Picking a Good Seat on Your Flight

Sorry everyone - this past weekend I was going to take pictures of clothes prior to packing them and then what they looked like packed.  I never got the time to do it. 

What I do want to share with you today is picking a seat on a plane.  We have a little trick that works well if the flight is NOT overbooked.  And of course this only works if you can pick your seats. 

We will choose the very back of the plane - third or fourth row from the back - and choose the two aisle seats in the middle row.  People will not book a seat in the middle of the middle row.  The only time these get assigned are on flights that are overbooked.  We have had about a 75% success rate of having that middle seat empty.  Having that seat empty gives us room to spread out.  We can take turns lying down to sleep.

In this picture we would choose row 38 - either the two aisle rows in the middle row of the plane or the aisle and window seat on side of the plane.  In row 39 we would choose the aisle and window seats on the side of the plane.  See in illustration above that I marked the seats we would choose with a blue X and then highlighted them in yellow.  That would leave an empty seat between us.  Now if by chance the flight is overbooked and all seats are assigned, I guarantee you the person stuck in the middle will be thrilled to switch so you can sit next to your loved one.  You do not want the last row and try to stay away from the second to the last row.  The last row is right by the bathrooms that will smell after so many hours and most do not recline. 

If you are willing to pay extra emergency row exists are also great. 

We just used this strategy to fly to Rome last month and having the extra seat was AMAZING.  :)

Also for the IPhone I use the app called SeatGuru by Trip Advisor.  You can enter your flight and it will give you information about the different seats.  It will tell you a bad seat versus a good seat.