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What about if you go to a restaurant, where you order at the counter. La Madeleine, for example.
You arrive early for lunch, and the restaurant is filling up, and you know 8 of your friends are on the way and will be there within 5 minutes.
You pull two tables together, and assemble chairs, and put your jacket across a chair.
At that restaurant, there is clearly an established queue with numbered orders. It's very obvious who arrived, and when.
What do you think of someone who plops them self down with their salad to eat at your table?
Honestly, I'd like to know. Because that's exactly what you're saying should happen on a plane. People who get there early shouldn't be allowed to say these two chairs are occupied, sorry.
If a restaurant is crowded and there is nowhere to sit, yes, you should be prepared to share a table.
I went to a preview night of "A Star is Born" a couple days before it opened. Tickets couldn't be purchased, only awarded by the promotional company working with the studio. They knew it was going to be a full house. As we stood in line waiting to go in, employees walked back and forth announcing the rules, one of which was "your entire party must enter together or you won't be seated together. There will be no seat saving." IMO, that's the way it should be when a show is expected to be at capacity.
"you won't be seated together" - that suggests either assigned seating or they were doing something like filling up each row at a time as people entered the theater, rather than the Southwest model of allowing people to select their preferred seat. Southwest would be free to change to that model if they wanted, although I can only imagine how well that would go over with the people who paid for A group seating and were told to take the middle seat because that was the next open seat when they were next in line.
"you won't be seated together" - that suggests either assigned seating or they were doing something like filling up each row at a time as people entered the theater, rather than the Southwest model of allowing people to select their preferred seat.
I've also been to those early viewings. You can not wherever you want. They say you won't be seated together because you can't save seats. If some of the people you are with see coming into the theater later, you need to deal with the fact that you won't sit together. If you absolutely need to sit in silence for 2 hours next to those you came with, then you need to plan that out ahead of time so that you are all in line together.
Just as the Op should have planned it out ahead of time. I know some want to change the situation and claim "but what if someone was running late." The wife and child wasn't late in getting to the airport. They were there. The OP chose to board ahead of them instead of all boarding together so that he could cheat the system.
I've also been to those early viewings. You can not wherever you want. They say you won't be seated together because you can't save seats. If some of the people you are with see coming into the theater later, you need to deal with the fact that you won't sit together. If you absolutely need to sit in silence for 2 hours next to those you came with, then you need to plan that out ahead of time so that you are all in line together.
Just as the Op should have planned it out ahead of time. I know some want to change the situation and claim "but what if someone was running late." The wife and child wasn't late in getting to the airport. They were there. The OP chose to board ahead of them instead of all boarding together so that he could cheat the system.
Well it's a good thing you aren't in charge. So vindictive. You sound like one of those store clerks who lock the doors 10 minutes before closing, to prevent last minute shoppers from getting in, because "that's the rules".
I mean, cut people a little slack. And read the thread. The people coveting the saved seats were near the end of the line, not people who paid for early seating.
I've also been to those early viewings. You can not wherever you want. They say you won't be seated together because you can't save seats. If some of the people you are with see coming into the theater later, you need to deal with the fact that you won't sit together. If you absolutely need to sit in silence for 2 hours next to those you came with, then you need to plan that out ahead of time so that you are all in line together.
Just as the Op should have planned it out ahead of time. I know some want to change the situation and claim "but what if someone was running late." The wife and child wasn't late in getting to the airport. They were there. The OP chose to board ahead of them instead of all boarding together so that he could cheat the system.
Exactly. You cannot sit wherever you want. They explicitly state you cannot save seats. Which means this has no relevance at all to how Southwest seats its passengers.
Exactly. You cannot sit wherever you want. They explicitly state you cannot save seats. Which means this has no relevance at all to how Southwest seats its passengers.
That was supposed to say "you can sit wherever you want." They don't assign seats, or tell you where to go.
Well it's a good thing you aren't in charge. So vindictive.
Vindictive? What exactly is vindictive about what I said? If you wanted to sit together, you should have bought early boarding for your wife and child as well. Since you did not, your early boarding entitled you to one set, the other seats should have been available to those who boarded before your wife and also potentially paid for early boarding.
Well it's a good thing you aren't in charge. So vindictive. You sound like one of those store clerks who lock the doors 10 minutes before closing, to prevent last minute shoppers from getting in, because "that's the rules".
I mean, cut people a little slack. And read the thread. The people coveting the saved seats were near the end of the line, not people who paid for early seating.
I don't think it's a matter of vindictiveness. Many people, such as myself, have a sense that everyone should have to play by the same set of rules in life. And, no offense, but no matter how you try to rationalize it, your plan does skirt the established rules.
Each SWA boarding position is a single number, giving you a queued spot in which to individually board. Now, you can improve that by either being a frequent flyer or paying for an upgrade. The thing is, though, that everyone on that plane (even those that don't avail themselves of either of those opportunities) do, at least, have the option of availing themselves of those opportunities.
Outside of that, your queue position is determined on a first-come, first-served basis. I'm cheap, so I don't like to pay for the upgrade. But, I am almost always in A/early B, because I'm on that computer checking in the first second I get. Do I like to wake up at 5:30 AM to check in, especially when I'm going to have to get up the next day at 3 AM to head to the airport? Heck no. But I do it. If I'm A30, I should be the 30th person on the plane, not effectively the 88th because the other 29 people are all saving 2 additional seats.
It might not be forbidden to save seats like the OP describes, but my opinion is that saving multiple seats is rude and tacky. If there is some really compelling reason why you MUST all sit together, either shell out the bucks for early seating for everyone in your party or fly a different airline with assigned seating. You can't have your cake (cheap flight) and eat it too (be guaranteed great seats all together without all paying the early boarding fee).
I don't think it's a matter of vindictiveness. Many people, such as myself, have a sense that everyone should have to play by the same set of rules in life. And, no offense, but no matter how you try to rationalize it, your plan does skirt the established rules.
Each SWA boarding position is a single number, giving you a queued spot in which to individually board. Now, you can improve that by either being a frequent flyer or paying for an upgrade. The thing is, though, that everyone on that plane (even those that don't avail themselves of either of those opportunities) do, at least, have the option of availing themselves of those opportunities.
Outside of that, your queue position is determined on a first-come, first-served basis. I'm cheap, so I don't like to pay for the upgrade. But, I am almost always in A/early B, because I'm on that computer checking in the first second I get. Do I like to wake up at 5:30 AM to check in, especially when I'm going to have to get up the next day at 3 AM to head to the airport? Heck no. But I do it. If I'm A30, I should be the 30th person on the plane, not effectively the 88th because the other 29 people are all saving 2 additional seats.
then you need to take it up with Southwest, because they have repeatedly made it clear that they don't have a policy against saving a seat for someone else. Not to mention the absurdity of claiming that everyone in front of you is going to save two seats in addition to their own, because of course that is not what happens.
The real issue is people like the guy in the USA Today article
Quote:
Well, not technically her seat because Southwest famously doesn’t assign seats. It was the exit-row aisle seat she had her eyes on so they could sit across from one another. They had each paid the airline’s $15 early bird fee in hopes of snagging the coveted seats with extra legroom — Weinshanker is 6-2' — during Southwest’s first-come, first-served open boarding.
A passenger who boarded before the couple was saving the aisle seat for her boyfriend because he was near the end of the boarding line. She sat in the middle and put a tablet on the aisle seat.
Weinshanker told her, nicely he says, that Southwest has open seating and asked her to move the tablet to the window seat to try to save that for her boyfriend. She did, but burst into tears when her boyfriend boarded, telling him Weinshanker had intimidated her.
If i had been the person he bullied into giving up the aisle seat, I would have said "ok, fine, I'll remove my tablet from the aisle seat and then sit in it myself, which is my right since I boarded ahead of you and claimed it. Your wife is welcome to take the middle seat next me which is now vacant." First come, first served, after all.
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