Before I met my wife, I always made sure to pay extra—at least for a window seat—on even the cheapest budget flights. Since then, I’ve learned a thing or two, including how to get the best seats for free, even with a no-frills ticket and no seat reservation.
Take our last four trips, for example: three times we ended up with window seats near the front of the plane, and once, traveling as a group of three, we got seats in the same row with just one empty seat between us. All for free—no seat selection, just basic tickets and randomized seat assignments.
What I’m about to share with you works almost every time. But there are two things you should keep in mind:
- Almost every time. Meaning it’s not guaranteed. Most of the time, I get window seats toward the front, but there’s always a chance I won’t.
- You need patience and nerves of steel. Budget airlines count on travelers being impatient so they can make extra money off us.
How Budget Airlines Make Money Off You
Let’s take a quick look at how budget airlines actually make their profits. It’ll help you understand the trick I’m about to show you. Without this background, it might just sound like a clever hack. But once you understand how their seat assignment system works, you’ll see how this method practically guarantees a good seat—if you play your cards right.
Budget tickets are super cheap—but that’s because you’re not really paying for anything other than getting your butt from point A to point B. No checked bags, no frills, and not even a guaranteed seat. That low base price is what draws you in—it’s the only price you’ll see when you start your flight search.
Then once you’re “hooked” and either starting the booking process or have already purchased your ticket, the upsells start rolling in. We haven’t been charged a “coffee-warming fee” yet, but if you’ve flown a low-cost airline, you know you’ll be asked to pay for just about everything—including the privilege of choosing any seat at all.
Seat Selection or Random Assignment?
Right from the start, airlines do everything they can to discourage random seat assignment and push you toward paying for a reserved seat. Just reading the copy on their website, you’d think skipping this step was a terrible idea. Plus, the option to continue without seat selection is usually buried somewhere, hard to find unless you know where to look.
Still, many experienced travelers see through this and skip the seat selection step, continuing on with their basic ticket. These are the people who stay in the running for the best randomly assigned seats.
But there’s a catch: random seat assignment usually means you can’t check in until 24 hours before your flight. And if you forget to check in, you could face a serious penalty. Before that, of course, you’ll get multiple emails “reminding” you to lock in your seat now—“before it’s too late” (for a fee, naturally). Some people cave and drop out of the game at this point.
Welcome to the Final Round!
If you’ve made it this far, congrats—you’re in the final round! But you’re not alone. You’re part of the group who refuses to pay extra for a seat and is waiting until the last 24 hours to check in and let the system assign them a seat—good or bad.
But this is where the real fun begins. In that final 24-hour window before departure, people start panicking. Fear of missing out kicks in. What if they forget to check in? What if the plane is overbooked? What if they get fined? So most travelers rush to check in as soon as it opens—and get stuck with whatever seat the algorithm hands them.
At the same time, last-minute travelers (often business people) are entering the picture. These folks usually have more money to spend, and last-minute budget flights are pricey. So they’re often willing to pay extra for better seats.
And of course, the budget airline is still playing the game. They know this is their last chance to squeeze a few more bucks out of the remaining travelers. And they have a smart system to do just that.
The Best Seats on the Plane
At this point, many of the best seats haven’t been assigned yet, because earlier travelers skipped the paid seat selection. So as people check in, the airline offers them prime seats—for an extra charge.
But what counts as a prime seat—one that someone might still pay for last minute?
Well, definitely not a middle seat over the wing. Or the back row seat in front of the bathroom.
The most desirable seats—ones that might still earn the airline extra cash even in the final hours—usually include, in roughly this order:
- Window seats
- Seats with extra legroom
- Front row seats
- Groups of seats in the same row (for families or friends)
- Aisle seats
These Seats Are Saved Until the Very Last Minute
Getting the picture now? The airline has a strong incentive to hold onto these prime seats for as long as possible. If they offered a middle seat near the wing or a bathroom-adjacent spot as an upgrade, no one would buy it. Travelers would just roll the dice with the free assignment.
And if they offered scattered seats to families or groups for an extra charge, who would pay for that?
But if you’re given the option to buy a genuinely better seat—one with a view, more space, or seats together—many people will take it. Especially when everything about the online check-in experience is designed to sell you something.
So if, at this stage, the system can still offer extra legroom or a window in the front row, a decent number of people will go for it, even if they initially opted for random seating.
Which means: the better the seat, the longer the airline will intentionally keep it unassigned.
And they also know this—if regular flyers consistently get split up from their travel companions or stuck in awful seats, they’ll be more likely to pay for better ones next time.
The Method
So here’s how to work the system to your advantage. It’s simple—just don’t panic. You’ll need to hold your nerve until the very last minute.
- Buy your ticket without choosing a seat. Let the algorithm do its thing.
- Check the check-in window. It usually opens 24 hours before your flight and closes a few hours before departure. Do not miss this time window.
- Ignore all the pop-ups and emails trying to convince you to pay for a seat.
- Resist the urge to check in as soon as the window opens. That’s when most people get stuck with the worst seats.
- Wait. For morning flights, check in after 9 PM the night before. For afternoon flights, wait until at least 9 AM. That’s when the best free seats start to appear.
See the pattern? Almost nobody wants to wait until late at night to check in for a morning or early flight. Same goes for afternoon flights—most people try to get check-in out of the way early in the day.
What’s Left for the Patient Traveler?
The best seats—the ones the airline kept hidden until the very last moment, hoping someone would pay for them.
By this point, most travelers have already checked in. And all the bad seats have already been assigned.
So your odds are great that you’ll get one of the best seats—absolutely free—on a budget flight. Just like we did with seat 06A, twice in a row.