It’s commonly acknowledged that the middle seat is the worst place to be put on the plane.
Not only do you have to share an armrest on either side, you can also feel squashed by the passengers travelling next to you. What’s more, there’s no easy access to the toilet and you can’t get a good look out the window.
In a bid to avoid being allocated this undesirable spot, some holidaymakers choose to pay a small fee to pick their seats. But according to one frequent flyer, there’s a way to swerve the middle seat without actually stumping up any money.
Explaining his “game-changing” hack on TikTok, Jorden Tually explained his method. He believes airlines “intentionally put you in the middle seat” so you have to pay more – but he’s grown wise to these tactics.
In response, he tricks the airline booking system into thinking there aren’t any middle seats available. He said: “Upon check-in I saw there were still 10 middle seats available, so I go straight to the website and pretend to buy 10 more tickets. The website is going to ask for every passenger’s names, so just slam a bunch of letters in and continue on.”
In his viral video, Jorden continued: “Next, go to seat selection and select all of the middle seats or all of the seats you definitely do not want to be sitting in. Then click continue. When you do this, the system will hold those seats for about 10-15 minutes, and that’s when you book yours.
“When you go to check in with your authentic ticket, you can see that there are no more middle seats so you can click that random seat allocation. It only took me two minutes, and now I have a window seat.”
Jorden said the method “never fails” – just make sure you don’t accidentally end up clicking the wrong button and purchasing 10 unneeded middle seats by accident!
Judging by the 175,000 likes that were left in response to the video, people are excited to try the travel hack out for themselves. One wrote: “How did I never think of this? I love it!”
However, some thought the method was more hassle than it’s worth. A commenter argued: “I’d rather pay. This wastes lots of time and my time is worth more than money.”