AirTran- Return flight check in w/ bags + visiting the parks after checkout

[DisneyDiana!]

I'm planning on using online check @ home in to print our boarding passes and pick our seats for our flight to Orlando. My question is what about our return flight? Will I have to find a computer on property to print out our boarding passes? I think on our last trip the hotel checked us in and printed out our boarding passes but do they also make sure we all sit together? What about choosing our seats? We have a toddler with us so I want to make sure we're sitting together. The last couple of trips it was just DH and I so I wasn't that concerned. Also, what about paying any baggage fees? Could we pay those in advance at the airport when we land? We’re staying on property but our return flight home is at 8:00pm.

Also, if we wanted to go to the parks on our check out day what should we do with our carry ons. Should we rent a locker at the park and store them there? The luggage we would leave with ME before we left the hotel, right?

Thank you so much for all of your help!

 

[pooch]

I'm planning on using online check @ home in to print our boarding passes and pick our seats for our flight to Orlando. My question is what about our return flight? Will I have to find a computer on property to print out our boarding passes? I think on our last trip the hotel checked us in and printed out our boarding passes but do they also make sure we all sit together? What about choosing our seats? We have a toddler with us so I want to make sure we're sitting together. The last couple of trips it was just DH and I so I wasn't that concerned. Also, what about paying any baggage fees? Could we pay those in advance at the airport when we land? We’re staying on property but our return flight home is at 8:00pm.

Also, if we wanted to go to the parks on our check out day what should we do with our carry ons. Should we rent a locker at the park and store them there? The luggage we would leave with ME before we left the hotel, right?

Thank you so much for all of your help!

Never used Air Tran so unfamiliar with their seating assignment procedures but...

Guest Services at any park or resort can give you access to a computer to get seat assignments at the appropriate time. From other replies here, I am told NOT to check in at that time, just select seats. You will be checked in at RAC (Resort Airline Checkin) as you stated above and they will give you your boarding passes.

Baggage fees - when I fly Delta home, I get a notice the day before on my door with the phone # to BAGS. You call them and pay bag fee over the phone. They give you a confirmation # and you give it to the RAC people to show you've paid.

Carry-ons - can be left with Bell Services (please remember to tip appropriately) and picked up when you return for DME. Be sure to leave enough time to pick up the carry-ons prior to your DME time.

Hope this helps & others will chime in!

 

[aubriee]

If you do a search here on the DIS, you will find lots of threads from people asking if they should prepurchase their seats and if Air Tran will separate them from their child if their child is a toddler. Yes, they will. Air Tran allows customers to prepurchase seats at the time of booking (or any time up until 24 hours out) for $6.00. $13.00, $15.00, and $20.00. If there are any seats available at the 24 hour mark, you can go online and choose your seats for free. However, I would not expect to find any seats together at that point. What is available will probably be middle seats scattered throughout the plane. If there do happen to be any seats together, you will have other families who did not pay for their seats also trying to get those seats at the 24 hour mark. I fly Air Tran several times a year and more and more people are prepurchasing their seats. Every flight I've been on this year, I have seen frantic parents demanding they move people around so they can sit with their kids. The scenario is always the same: The customer says :"No we didn't pay for our seats. We didn't dream Air Tran would separate us from our toddler. The Air Tran rep says: "Sir we didn't separate you from your child. You chose to take that chance, when you didn't prepurchae your seats and we will not make anyone else move to accommodate you, but you can ask when you get on the plane". Once they get on the plane sometimes they find people willing to trade seats with them and sometimes they don't. My recommendation would be to go online now and pay the $6.00 for both flights to guarantee you get to sit together. I fly solo frequently and because I refuse to sit in middle or window seats or in the back of the plane I choose to pay $15.00 for my preferred aisle seat close to the front. I don't know how many times I've been asked to give that seat up for someone who chose not to pay the seat fee. (If you prepurchase those $13.00 and $15.00 seats, they guarantee you Boarding Zone 1. If there are any left at the 24 hour mark, you can choose them for free, but you do not get priority boarding. Instead you get boarding zone 7, which is the very last boarding zone. Most overhead bins will be full at that point.)

Here are some of those threads:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2292309&highlight=airtran+seats

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2624648&highlight=airtran+seats

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2536503&highlight=airtran+seats

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2522846&highlight=airtran+seats

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2500313&highlight=airtran+seats

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2460034&highlight=airtran+seats

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2443234&highlight=airtran+seats

 

[aubriee]

As I said I would go online now and pick $6.00 seats where you can sit together. If you choose not to prepay for your seats, do not expect those who did to accommodate you. There is a very good chance that at the 24 hour mark all that may be available will be middle seats scattered throughout the plane. If you do choose to take that chance, then you can go online at the 24 hour mark at home, choose your seats for free and print your boarding passes for the flight down there. For the flight back you will just have to take your chances when you check in to get your boarding passes on the last day. (You can have guest services check you in at the 24 hour mark for your flight back home and choose your seats then, but if you do check in at the 24 hour mark, you may have to carry your bags to the airport with you on the DME bus as RAC will not be able to check you in again the next morning. I found this out the hard way the one time I tried it.) On your next to the last day of your vacation there will be DME envelope left on your door. Inside is a letter telling you your DME pick up time. At the bottom of that letter, is a number to call if you are checking luggage. Early on your last day, when you call it, have your credit card and a pen handy. As soon as they answer they ask what airline you are flying out on, how many bags you are checking and for your credit card number. They then immediately give you a confirmation number. I usually write that number on the bottom of my DME pickup time letter. When you drop your checked luggage off at the RAC desk, they will ask for that luggage fee confirmation number as proof that you paid your luggage fees. They will then print your boarding passes. If you have not prepaid your seat fees, the computer will assign you seats from whatever is left over at that time. If you do not like them, the person at the RAC desk can check to see if any others are available.

After you get your boarding passes, drop any carryons you might have at bell services, and catch a bus to any park. The DME pick up time they give you is the time the bus is scheduled to leave the resort for the airport, not the time it is scheduled to arrive at the resort. So make sure you are there a good 30 minutes prior to your pick up time and allow plenty of time to pick up your carry ons from bell services. Those DME buses have been known to leave early. With an 8:00pm flight departure, your pick up time should be around 5:00pm.

 

[pamelaz]

Thanks aubriee!
That was very helpful to me as well.

 

[DisneyDiana!]

Thanks everyone! I just sucked it up and paid for our seats. It was worth it to not have to worry about checking in early. NOw I can just have the hotel print our boarding passes. Thanks for the advice!

 

[minnierocks]

Thanks everyone! I just sucked it up and paid for our seats. It was worth it to not have to worry about checking in early. NOw I can just have the hotel print our boarding passes. Thanks for the advice!

We used Airtran for our last trip in March. Good move on pre-purchasing your seats. There was a couple loudly complaining on our flight home that they had just separated the children from the parents. It was a couple and two primary school aged children. They all ended up with single seats all over the plane for a sold out flight. I prepaid for my seats, as did many others, so no one was going to move. Because we were booked on DME for the trip back to the airport, our boarding passes were printed and delivered to our room the day before we checked out. There is a toll free number listed on your DME brochure to call and pay your luggage fees for your flight home. We did that the day before leaving, so all we had to do was drop off our bags at the RAC check-in desk at our resort.

 

[mitchinson]

After reading your posts I'm rethinking my Airtran flight in November and to prepay for seats but when I check the Airtran site the fees look like they are $20 each way to reserve a seat. Where can I find the $6 fee and how do I go about adding this now that I've already paid for my flight? Thanks

 

[minnierocks]

After reading your posts I'm rethinking my Airtran flight in November and to prepay for seats but when I check the Airtran site the fees look like they are $20 each way to reserve a seat. Where can I find the $6 fee and how do I go about adding this now that I've already paid for my flight? Thanks

The seats have different pricing depending on where you choose to sit. The ones in the front of the plane are more than the ones further back. I usually get seats about halfway back but still in front of the wing for $6 each.
Bring up your reservation and choose to pick your seats. A diagram of the plane/seating will be visible. If you scroll over the seats, it will show you the price of that seat. Find the $6 ones (if they are still available) and reserve the seats that you want. Then you will pay the fees with a credit card.
I hope this helps...

 

[mitchinson]

Thanks for the info Minnierocks.
I've checked and it looks like most of the available seats for $6 are over the wing...which is okay for a 2hr flight...but I don't really want to be in the evacuation row...Do you happen to know which row that would be?
Thanks again.

 

[minnierocks]

Thanks for the info Minnierocks.
I've checked and it looks like most of the available seats for $6 are over the wing...which is okay for a 2hr flight...but I don't really want to be in the evacuation row...Do you happen to know which row that would be?
Thanks again.

Sorry...I don't know the answer to that. I do know that you can purchase seats by phone for the same price, so I would recommend calling and speaking to a customer service rep who should be able to help you avoid an exit row.

 

[aubriee]

Thanks for the info Minnierocks.
I've checked and it looks like most of the available seats for $6 are over the wing...which is okay for a 2hr flight...but I don't really want to be in the evacuation row...Do you happen to know which row that would be?
Thanks again.

The $15.00 seats are the first few rows in coach, the $13.00 seats are the next few rows behind them, the next few should be $6.00 seats, then the $20.00 seats are the exit (evacuation) rows and then behind them should be some more $6.00 seats.

 

[kellydizfan]

We just got back yesterday and flew Air-tran. There were 5 of us. I did not pick my seats. Disney printed my boarding passes for me - we stayed at POP and they were on my door the day before. We ended up together in row 29. We went and checked our luggage with Disney at the desk and went on our way. We ended up taking a voluntary bump at the airport and they put us up in a Hotel for two nights - the Crown Plaza Orlando Airport where all the pilots stay from what I could tell along with the attendents. We now have 10 round trip tickets to use in the next year. Trying to figure out what we want to do with them.

 

[dogodisney]

edit

 

[dogodisney]

Thanks for the info Minnierocks.
I've checked and it looks like most of the available seats for $6 are over the wing...which is okay for a 2hr flight...but I don't really want to be in the evacuation row...Do you happen to know which row that would be?
Thanks again.

When you click on the seats that are in the evacuation rows, a message will show that will say what they are and that you have to be an 18 yo, etc.

 

[mitchinson]

For better or worse we are booked in row 20...across the aisle from each other. The seating chart with the available seats that is on the screen where you choose your flight is different from the one when you bring up the itinerary so I just closed my eye and picked two available seats!

Thanks for your replies.