When booking a flight, passengers often face a dilemma: pay extra to select a seat or risk being allocated a middle seat. On budget airlines, random allocation frequently results in the least desirable seat, as paying customers tend to choose aisle or window seats.
A travel enthusiast, Jorden Tually, has shared a method on TikTok that he claims guarantees avoiding the middle seat. His trick involves pretending to purchase multiple tickets on the airline's website to temporarily hold the middle seats.
Steps include entering dummy passenger names on the booking page, selecting all available middle seats, and continuing without entering payment information. This holds those seats for about 10–15 minutes, during which the user can check in with their real ticket and opt for random allocation.
Tually says the hack has a 100% success rate and is easiest when done close to check-in, as fewer seats remain. He stresses that users must not accidentally pay for the dummy tickets.
Reactions online are mixed. Some commenters called it 'brilliant', while others argued that the effort is not worth saving a small fee.
