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A traveler shared their response when another traveler asked them to exchange their business-class seat on a plane.
A passenger who was in business class on a recent flight shared on Reddit about being approached by a woman. The passenger had settled into their window seat at the front of the cabin for the long flight when the woman asked if they would switch seats with her husband so they could sit together. The Reddit user, who was traveling alone, recounted the incident.
As per the Reddit user, they inquired about the location of the husband’s seat from the other passenger. The woman responded that he was seated in row 25, which is in the economy section. The Reddit user chose not to switch seats as the woman was attempting to get her husband a better seat without paying for it.
The passenger in the business-class cabin shared on Reddit, in a post that has now been deleted, that the woman was visibly distressed when she did not receive the seat and was shocked that she would not be permitted to sit next to her husband on the flight.
“I proposed that she exchange her seat with the person sitting next to her husband in order for them to sit together. She scoffed and informed me that she had purchased a first class ticket! I gave a small smile and replied that I too had done the same.”
Numerous individuals have commented in support of the passenger who refused to give up their seat after the post was shared. One comment stated, “I am astonished that she thought this tactic would be effective. What an idiot.”
Unfortunately, I witnessed a “TikTok Travel Influencer” promote this as a “hack,” another person commented. “I dislike everything about TikTok.”
“I paid thousands for my first-class seat on a long-haul flight. I refuse to give it up for some entitled person,” a third commenter echoed the passenger’s sentiment. “No amount of tears will make me budge.”
A different person added that they have observed someone successfully use this strategy to obtain a seat upgrade without having to pay for it. They shared, “I witnessed it work and I was upset on behalf of the person. It was an elder lady and a younger couple asked her for the seat. The girl even started crying. The elder lady gave them her upgraded seat and as soon as she left, the tears stopped.” They concluded, “If you want to sit together, you can offer your upgrade to someone else and take the less desirable seats. That’s all there is to it.”
Several people speculated that the woman was not originally seated in first class and was instead upgraded, while her husband was not. One comment stated, “Since she didn’t purchase a first-class ticket, she received an upgrade, but her husband did not.”
The post was made in response to a couple’s refusal to relinquish reserved seats for children.
Amanda Mancino-Williams posted on X (previously known as Twitter) about her recent journey on a crowded train from Cheltenham to Nottingham in the UK. The train had seats arranged in groups of four, with a table between two seats. Despite reserving a group of four seats for herself and her children, she found an elderly couple occupying two of the seats when she arrived. In a revived thread from 2019, she stated that the couple refused to move, disregarding her reserved tickets.
Source: independent.co.uk