How can I keep the seat beside me empty?

M

Marsupial

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An interesting question arose last night at the end of a 40th wedding anniversary meal (small quantities of fermented grape juice may have been consumed).

The happy couple in question are heading to the sun on a Ryanair flight next week.

When booking the flights, they considered buying the third seat in their row so they wouldn't have a stranger sitting beside them on a 4 hour flight.
They tried to purchase the 3 seats in the row, but couldn't get over the problem of not having a name and passport number for the non-passenger who in theory would be occuping the third seat. So they gave up.

They were wondering whether this can be done and if so how. Has anyone ever managed to do this - and if so, how did you do it?
 
Did they try putting one of their own names and passport details in a second time for the extra seat?
 
Or RTFM...


Can I buy an extra seat for comfort?​

Yes. Firstly, purchase two full-fare flight tickets. Book the first ticket in your name. Then for your second ticket, enter ‘EXTRA’ as the first name and ‘COMFORT SEAT’ as the last name. ‘EXTRA COMFORT SEAT’ will then be added to your reservation. When checking in online, the same travel document details will be added for you and your extra seat.
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You can book a second ticket in your own name and passport number.

I did this by mistake a few months ago. While booking the first ticket my tablet crashed and the booking appeared to have been lost. I then, thinking that the ticket was not booked, proceeded to do the booking again. The Ryanair site put up a warning that this was an identical booking. It was late at night and I stupidly went ahead and completed the second booking.

Later I noticed two confirmation emails and two Ryanair charges on my credit card.

I contacted Ryanair and discovered to my surprise that a double identical booking is one of the very few situations where Ryanair will give a full cash refund.

A few days later the charge for the second booking was returned to my credit card.


However if you want to ensure that you have an extra empty seat,
proceed as highlighted by Clubman and book a comfort seat.

If I had not requested a refund for the second identical booking, I presume that I would only be able to check in for one half of my split personality. The other half would probably be classed as a no show, and the seat could have been filled by Ryanair with a standby passenger.
 
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Full fare is presumably the fare cost at the time of booking.
The second ticket I booked would have been under 20 euro.

Unfortunately it included a 20kg bag and was a lot dearer.
The Ryanair refund included the second 20kg bag fee.
 
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Brendan Burgess said:
Booking two seats could be quite cheap if you book well in advance.
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That's why they were interested in doing it. Booking the third seat would only have cost them about €80 return (no extra charges for priority boarding or bags although they would have had to pay the reserved seat charge), which they considered represented pretty good value for 8 hours travel.
 
Or they could just not shower for a couple of days before the flight, scares off potential seat neighbours.
 
Book the seat for a musical instrument, and pack your clothes in a violin case. Even Ryanair surely won't part you from a beloved violin
 
Setforlife said:
Booking the seat will not make much difference on Ryanair they’ll likely move people around and take the seat anyway.
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Strange assertion. In my experience - and my first Ryanair flights were back in 1998 when I was working in Paris - if one pays extra to select a specific seat, then one gets it.
 
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I never pay extra to choose a seat.
I always take a randomly allocated seat.
A seat number is given at the online check in stage.
I have never been asked to change to a different seat.
 
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