Airtran Priority Seating?

[maciec]

I was going to wait until the 24 hour mark instead of purchasing our tickets. I just checked to see what was left for our plane 1 week from now and all that is left is the Priority Seating seats. My question is, if I wait until I get to the airport for a seating assignment for the 4 of us will we get one of those for free or will I still have to pay for them?

(PS) this is a flight to Maine not WDW. Never again will I wait to do seats! This was my first time and it will be my last time checking in at the 24 hour mark.

 

[miksicnarf]

I can tell you this: I've been monitoring the available seats on our flight for tomorrow. There are 4 of us, and I did not purchase any preassigned seats. The only 4 seats together showing as available as of yesterday were 4 aisle seats, 2 on one side and 2 across. This morning I checked in online and we were given 4 seats in a row, 3 on one side and 1 across. These seats *did not* show as available yesterday. So, in this case what showed up online was not accurate and if that holds true for you, you may be assigned a non-priority seat...or not .

 

[cruisingkat]

If you wait until check in for the priority seats, you will not get the priority boarding. We did that on our flight down to FL (we were flying into Ft. Myers and flying home from Orlando). The flight to Ft. Myers showed plenty of seats available and the very low price was still offered so I waited until checkin to select our seats. For the flight home, I noticed that all the tickets left for sale were for business class (I check every couple of days for price fluctuations). So I decided to book our seat assignments. I picked out priority seats and we were in boarding group 1 and 2.
For the trip down, when I booked the seats at checkin, I chose seats in the exact same spot as on the trip home (priority seating), but instead of the early boarding group we were given group 6 and 7. We noticed that those that pay for their seats get the early boarding numbers, then for those that choose their seats at check-in, they those at the back of the plane were given lower boarding numbers and boarded before those near the front.

 

[ssawka]

When we flew AirTran in January I did not reserve seats. For about a month before the flight, the website was only showing priority seats available. However, when I did the online check-in right at the 24HR mark, there were many seats available. So, I wouldn't worry about it, just do the online check-in early if you can.

 

[ancestry]

You may get the priority seats but you won't be given the priority boarding benefit. I.E. your boarding zone will be something like zone 7 or 8 not zone 1 or 2. This happened with my daughter last month.

 

[maciec]

The flight that we took today up here to Maine was over sold. There aren't that many seats that are left on the return flight so I ended up paying the $13 for the priority seats just so that we had seats together. BOO! I will never do this again. Lesson learned.

 

[Inkmahm]

My experience is that even when there are quite a few open seats showing for our flights with Airtran, they are all pretty much sold out when we actually board the plane. That's why we reserve exit row and then upgrade to business class if we can.

 

[aubriee]

You may get the priority seats but you won't be given the priority boarding benefit. I.E. your boarding zone will be something like zone 7 or 8 not zone 1 or 2. This happened with my daughter last month.

This happened to me this past May also. I was able to get a seat in the priority zone, but because I hadn't paid for it, I was in boarding zone 7.

Actually I had booked through Kayak months before, back when you could choose your seats for free if you booked through them. After Air Tran decided to open up those first few rows for priority seating, I was able to go back and choose one of them, but didn't have to pay any more. When I clicked on the seat, it said priority seating boarding zone 1. I didn't realize until I checked in, that I wouldn't get the zone 1 boarding benefit. It's fair I guess, since I didn't pay for it. If I'd known though, I'd kept my original $6.00 seat that I did paid for and wouldn't have moved.