Travel Tip: Change Your Seat

So you've planned a trip. You've booked the hotel, the transportation, and you got those very important tickets to that special thing you wanted to see. You may have even already booked your plane tickets. Then you find out they aren't the seats you wanted. Now your trip is ruined. Here's a helpful tip.... Change your seats at the gate. 

Once you've gone through airport security and hit every checkpoint imaginable you'll have to sit there for several tedious hours waiting to board anyway. Why not make the most of it?

Usually everyone has checked in an hour before the flight, so this is an optimal time to change. Luckily most flights do not book up completely so there is usually some wiggle room for finding open seats. All you have to do is walk up to the desk, tell them your seat number, show them your boarding pass, and ask if there are any other open seats.

The best part is that if the only other open seats are in fact worse than your previously purchased seats you can politely tell them "that's okay" and walk away no worse for wear.

One example of this travel tip coming in handy is my recent trip to England. Unfortunately the only seats my travel companion and I could secure on such late notice were the very middle seats in the middle of the plane next to other passengers who were inevitably dreading seats next to us as well. (Not because we smelled or anything, but I'm not the most social on 10 hour flights.)

While waiting at our gate we went up to the desk and asked if there was any way we could change seats. Boy did we get lucky. There were two open seats at the back, next to the bathrooms in their own row.

The flight attendant warned us that these were not preferential seats because of their proximity to the bathroom but honestly that wasn't a con it was a pro.

We had our own row, we had extra room because of the awkward placement of the seats, we were some of the first people served because we were close to the attendants which means they were always nearby for help, AND we never had to wait for the bathroom. A quick glance over our shoulders always informed us if there was a line or an opening for the bathroom.

Wait a second...This turned into a post trying to convince you to love the back seats of the plane. That's not what I meant to convey. Instead I'm telling you not to stress about your seats on a flight. You can change them, and they will probably work out better than the original seats anyway.

Do you have any travel tips? We're all friends here. Go ahead and share.