I Love This Product

Well, this more of a "service" than a product, but it still fits into our new I Love This Product series.

My husband and I flew to Mexico for our honeymoon. By the way, our honeymoon took place three years after we were married because, well, duty calls..... The flight was horrendous. We were stuck in the back row, by the engine, in seats that didn't recline. It took about two days for the ears to stop ringing from the engine noise.

Today, airline passengers have a lot of options available to them. Most of the airlines I travel on will allow you to choose your seats at the time of booking. In some cases, you can even pay a small fee to guarantee an exit row (more leg room) or a business/first class seat (think luxurious travel) on the date of travel. I once flew from Washington, DC to San Francisco (a 4+ hour flight) and paid $40 to upgrade to first class. Worth. Every. Penny.

One thing I never do is to book an airline ticket without first consulting my trusted SeatGuru. SeatGuru diagrams the aircraft for me and tells me which seats have the most legroom, don't recline, don't have full armrests, aren't padded as well as others or are situated so that you're blasted with cold air from the air conditioning system. It's been an invaluable resource for me.

Next time you book travel and have the option of choosing seats, check Seat Guru first to be sure you don't book a terrible seat. If you don't have the option of choosing your seats on-line, you should still consult SeatGuru before you go to the airport. If the ticket agent assigns seats that you know are bad, you can ask him if other seats are available.

I haven't booked a bad seat in a long, long time, thanks to SeatGuru. Best of all...it's free. It's only a click away.

We've talked about splurging on yourself before here at SpouseBUZZ. If your spouse is deployed and you're traveling on an airline that allows you to upgrade to business or first class for a small fee on the date of travel, and you can afford it - do it. You're worth it!

Comments

[Marine Wife]

Ooh, leg room! I'm short enough it doesn't much matter, but poor Hubs has a 38 inch inseam (no, that's not a typo). Flying is never fun, except for those chartered military flights where the flight attendants have taken pity on him and put him in a first class seat.

This comment probably belongs elsewhere, but anyway....
Here's a free product, blog bling, from www.militarywidgets.com

[audette]

I've been using seatguru for a while now. Awesome. Just awesome.

Work has me travel quite a bit, and I definately take every flying advantage I can with the airmiles I get... Exit rows are a wonderful thing, especially on 8+ hour international flights (work won't splurge for business or first class tickets for me, and while I _could_ use the airmiles to upgrade, I want to save them to take DH somewhere fun after his deployment...).

[Penny]

Darn.. too bad I didn't know before, this would've been really helpful on trip up to Washington State.. On the other hand, I can definitely pass on this information to all the out-of-town guests that are coming for the wedding. Thanks!

[(army) wife]

We're flying for new years and we've already booked our flight. I just went on to seat guru and changed our seat assignments based on their recommendations. Awesome!!

[Linda]

Seat Guru is a definite bookmark in our house. It allowed me to at least SEE where the seats were that the Army had booked for me when we PCS'ed to Germany.

[HH7]

Cool! Just checked it out and changed our block leave trip seats...we had ones that don't recline.

[aop]

This is a great service, bet the airlines are kicking themselves for not coming up with it first!