Airtran seating availability now on the site?

[puffkin]

What's up with the seating ability charts now on the Airtran site? Can you pick your seat at purchase on all price categories? I check fares everyday and just saw this pop up this morning.

Also wondering how accurate it is and if the unavailable seats have really been sold or just a tool to create urgency to purchase at the higher prices????

Any thoughts?

 

[elgerber]

I just went to look at my exising reservation, and it looks like, for $5 per seat, per flight, I can select a seat now, rather than waiting for check in. I'm trying to decide if it's worth the $40 to do so for our round trip flights in October.

 

[ADP]

Yup...seats can be selected at the time of booking, or if you are an A+ Rewards member you can login and select seats for flights you already have booked.

As mentioned there is a $5 charge per seat you select and a $15 per seat charge for exit rows.

I personally think that is extortion. IMHO!

 

[mlill]

I bought our return flight seat assignments so we can use RAC. I think it's worth it so I won't have to check in online 24 hours in advance to get our seats. Now we can just check our bags with RAC the morning of our flight, and already know we'll be sitting together on the plane. I'm happy to have the option to do this, and it is one less thing to worry about on vacation.

 

[snowbunny]

Thank you so much! I was really stressing about our flight home in July because we are going to be at Discovery Cove the entire day before we leave and would not be able to check in at the 24-hour mark or even close to it. Just reserved our three seats together for $15

 

[jobie61]

It looks like the airtran site is down. I'm trying to get in to my reservation to do this, but the site won't let me.

And for $40.00, you bet I'm going to jump on this.

Th early bird gets the worm.

 

[snowbunny]

It looks like the airtran site is down. I'm trying to get in to my reservation to do this, but the site won't let me.

Yeah I tried to book seats on my other flight and the site seems to be down...

 

[m_kasch]

I think it's awesome that you can do this! Now you don't have to worry about checking in right at 24 hours. And for only $5 bucks, not too bad! I would have rather flown on Airtran than Southwest before just because of the 24 hour advance seat assignments, but with this, it is a no brainer for me.

 

[jobie61]

What's up with the seating ability charts now on the Airtran site? Can you pick your seat at purchase on all price categories? I check fares everyday and just saw this pop up this morning.

Also wondering how accurate it is and if the unavailable seats have really been sold or just a tool to create urgency to purchase at the higher prices????

Any thoughts?

Thank you very much for posting this !!!!!!!!!

 

[snowbunny]

Also wondering how accurate it is and if the unavailable seats have really been sold or just a tool to create urgency to purchase at the higher prices????

Any thoughts?

It looks to me like the blocks of unavailable seats are blocked out to serve higher fares. I just reserved seats on four flights and the first 14 rows as well as the exit rows were blocked out on all of them.

All other seats were open, leading me to believe I put in the first reserved low-fare seats on these flights (row 15 in fact). For $5 it is totally worth it to me not to have to worry about whether I'll be able to get a row with my kids. Thanks again!

 

[jobie61]

I just picked my seat assignments for my August Trip.

This is a beautiful thing, I know don't have to worry about checking in at the 24 hr mark to ensure that my family can all sit together. The $40.00 was well worth it.

Going down was never a problem, but the return trip was always a hassle. having to be at a computer at the 24 hr mark to guarantee that we all could sit together.

Kudos to Airtran for making this happen.

 

[MagicMouseketeers]

Is your flight has a stop does it cost $5 or $10 /person ? Our departing fligh is non-stop but our return flight has a stop in Atlanta. So will it cost us $15/person or $10 ?

 

[momto2inKC]

Is your flight has a stop does it cost $5 or $10 /person ? Our departing fligh is non-stop but our return flight has a stop in Atlanta. So will it cost us $15/person or $10 ?

I'm in the process of attempting to get our seat assignments (but it's not giving me an option to pay ). One of our flights has a stop and it's only charging me $5 total for each person.

 

[erikthewise]

They are just getting started with this. Just because a seat is "unavailable" doesn't (at least not yet) mean it has been sold. A great many flights are showing "default" availability, which excludes several rows no doubt "reserved" for those who elect the higher priced tickets or some other way of scoring the good seats.

I love the idea of being able to keep an eye on availability. I don't like the idea of paying in advance for seat assignments. We have never had problems getting good seats in the past but now with everyone forking over money to get seats in advance we will probably have to do the same. We sometimes elect to buy business class upgrades on the day of the flight. I seriously doubt we would get our seat selection fee rebated, so it would just be money wasted.

 

[momto2inKC]

Well, I gave up with the website and finally just called. On our flight it showed several rows of first class, then there were 4 rows of coach that were marked unavailable. She told me that those are not taken, but could not be reserved. So we got row 15, the first row available. I'm just glad to have it done and taken care of. No worrying about the kids getting seperated from me, we're all together

 

[keishashadow]

What's up with the seating ability charts now on the Airtran site? Can you pick your seat at purchase on all price categories? I check fares everyday and just saw this pop up this morning.

Also wondering how accurate it is and if the unavailable seats have really been sold or just a tool to create urgency to purchase at the higher prices????

Any thoughts?

Know for our return flight (connecting) I used 2 rewards vouchers and paid $190 for 1 tix...worth it to me to be able to book the vouchers less than a month ahead of time. Tix dropped in priced few days later, got a credit in my AT account that I used to book our seats both ways today.

Since i had a 'near' full fare tix; i was able to book a seat when I made the ressie and thereby see the seats that were open to me (even though i didn't since i couldn't book the 2 companion seats). The availability chart for my tix was no different from the offerings for the vouchered seats when i checked both ressie #s today.

I did have a bear of a time, booking the seat assignments for the trip down to MCO. Had to call AT Rewards, kept getting an error message on web site. Rep worked with me for over 1/2 hour, evidently they're having trouble w/system matching reward #s to names...name on reservation has to match the name on reward account EXACTLY or they reject. I didn't use my middle initial to book 1 of the trip's legs.

IMO (especially since i had a credit ) it is well worth it to me, avoids the hassle of stopping @ desk for checkin and can just check in when we get to the airport & print boarding passes then.

Additionally, if you have a connecting flight, you only pay the $5 once for each person.

 

[johnnyr]

I just selected my seats and paid the $5 fee each way. I see a lot of posts about Air Trans constantly changing flight schedules. What happens to your seat assignments if your flight gets changed or cancelled?

 

[keishashadow]

I just selected my seats and paid the $5 fee each way. I see a lot of posts about Air Trans constantly changing flight schedules. What happens to your seat assignments if your flight gets changed or cancelled?

who knows, AT likes to wing it

Unless they cancel flight outright, assume you'd hold the same seat.

 

[DisneyFreak43]

Thanks so much for passing along this info - we had a $60 credit anyway from when the tickets had dropped, now we have assigned seats! DH will be so happy when I tell him 2 of the 4 seats are windows - just perfect!

 

[dogsmom]

Thanks for posting this!! I just selected our seats for our Dec. trip. Hopefully there won't be any drastic changes. Question: I have never picked our seats on line before. What do we do when we get to the airport? Do we still go to the check in desk? I'm not sure what the procedure is.