Seat Tactics: Two people flying together.

United 737: Would you pick row 13?

If you have two people flying together, there is a great trick you can try to get more space for you and your companion is called the A/C Trick. This works best on planes with 3/3 configurations (one row is two sets of three seats). Many people decide to book seats right next to each other, so one person ends up in the middle seat, but this is all wrong: If you are picking seats on a flight that isn’t full, you might be able to employ the preferences of your fellow passengers to score an extra seat with this trick. All you have to do is select the window (Seat A) and aisle seat (Seat C, hence the name) of a row, leaving the center seat empty. If you’re lucky, that seat will stay empty and you’ll get three seats for the price of two.

The basic assumption is that no one wants the middle seat. Before departure, people are unlikely to volunteer to sit between two unknown people and on the plane they are very likely to give up their middle seat for either a window or an aisle seat. If the trick doesn’t work then explain that you two were assigned seats apart and offer to trade their middle for your window or aisle, which is usually happily accepted. Then you’re in at least as good of a position as if you had just booked the seats next to each other to start with.

On larger planes like the 747, 777, and 767, where the configuration is 2/5/2, 3/4/3 or 2/3/2, you can also try this trick with the center section, but the risk is greater that two people traveling together will pick the center two seats and then you miss out on the almost ideal set of two seats by the window. If it does work, however, you’ll be able to stretch out and sleep lying down across the center section. Nice, no?

United 747: A/C trick in middle

United 777: Row 20 is risky, but might work. Row 25 is a safer bet.