Travel Influencer Shares Trick With ‘100% Perfect Record’ For Avoiding Sitting In The Middle Seat Without Paying Any Extra Fees
He claimed that this hack would allow passengers to pick their favorite seat.
Friends Stock | Shutterstock On airplanes, middle seats are considered the worst place to sit. Not only are you working with little-to-no armrests, limited personal space, and no access to the window or aisle, but you're also sandwiched between two other passengers — an experience that can often feel like a nightmare.
Most of the time, you have to pay to get the seat you want, but a travel influencer named Jordan Tually explained that it doesn't have to always be that way. Tually even admitted that he has a little trick that always works and can even save you money and the lackluster experience of having to sit in that dreaded middle seat.
A travel influencer revealed his trick for avoiding the middle seat on a plane without paying any extra fees.
"This is my 'avoid the middle seat when flying' airplane hack. So listen up, it's a good one," Tually began in his TikTok video. "Did you know with budget airlines, if you click 'random seat allocation' they will intentionally put you in the middle seat in the hopes that you pay money to get out of it?"
Tually insisted that he refused to pay for a window seat, and as he was on his way to the airport, he explained that his flight still had a good number of middle seats available.
By pretending to purchase all the middle seats still available on the flight, the travel influencer was able to secure the window seat he wanted.
Pulling up the flight seat availability, Tually showed that upon checking in for his flight, he saw there were approximately 10 open middle seats for him to choose from.
Instead of clicking on one, he instructed travelers to go straight to the website and pretend to buy those 10 middle seats. The website would then ask for each passenger's name, so Tually said just put in random letters as it didn't matter if you were inserting actual names or not.
The next step was to go back to the seat selection and select all of the middle seats or all of the seats that you definitely didn't want to sit in.
"When you do this, the system is going to hold those seats for about 10 to 15 minutes, and that's when you book yours," Tually said. "So, when you go to check in with your authentic ticket, you can see there's no more middle seats."
He continued, telling people that all they needed to do was click the random seat allocation once more, and just like that, they'd get the seat they actually wanted, whether that was an aisle or window, as Tually was able to get.
Middle seats are consistently seen as the least desirable seat for passengers.
According to data Thrillist obtained from United Airlines, a representative told the outlet that aisle seats and window seats are equally sought after, while middle seats are the least popular.
Similarly, according to the 2024 State of Travel report from Going, only 1% of respondents to their poll prefer the middle seat. Instead, 53% of the survey respondents favored window seats 53%, while 46% of respondents preferred the aisle.
The middle just isn't as desired, especially when compared to the freedom to get up and use the bathroom or stretch your legs whenever you please. Perhaps you prefer a view with the window seat with the luxury of being able to lean your head on the wall for a comfortable snooze.
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There just isn't anything fun about having to squash yourself and all of your belongings into the middle seat. You're fighting over the armrests (even though the unspoken rule is that the person in the middle seat should have both armrests since they're being subjected to sitting in that seat in the first place), and you have to stand up to let the person in the window seat out to use the bathroom.
At the end of the day, it's clear that a passenger will try their hardest to get out of having to sit in the middle seat, and hopefully, Tually's hack is a success for those who refuse to have to pay extra money just to get the seat they want.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.