Vueling seat allocation

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Wicksey
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Vueling seat allocation

Postby Wicksey » Sun Jan 17, 2016 11:12 am

I have just tried to check in for a Vueling flight to be told the following

Sorry, there are no more random seats available.
Random seat allocation at no extra cost is available 7 days before departure. Once the number of seats set aside for this service has been reached, and if you do not wish to book a seat that incurs an extra cost, you can pick up your boarding passes at the check-in desk on the day of departure, where we will allocate you a seat free of charge.


This is a sneaky way to make you now pay for a seat or have to queue at he airport.

I have just looked at what is available to buy and there are very few seats already allocated, so there must only be a couple of freebies available before they say they're all gone. Their seats aren't that cheap .... we pay almost the same to sit at the back on Vueling compared to very near the front on Easyjet. I know these are cheap flights, but I do hate these sneaky add-ons!

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby ajtg1952 » Sun Jan 17, 2016 11:28 am

If you are only taking hand baggage you can check in 7 days ahead of the flight and you will be allocated a seat. If you have hold baggage you are allocated a seat at the check in desk. It's almost the same as Ryanair and EasyJet. If you want a seat prebooked you pay for it, what is sneaky about that?

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Wicksey
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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby Wicksey » Sun Jan 17, 2016 11:45 am

Vueling say you can have a seat allocated online for free ..... you don't have to pay for one if you don't want a particular seat. We have travelled numerous times with them and have never had to pay for a seat.

Like Ryanair, they give you the choice of having a seat allocated by them for free. If you want a particular one then you pay for it. In the past we've always got a window seat for the OH and in fact some of the Vueling flights have been half empty anyway and we've all moved around after take-off and we've had a row to ourselves. Knowing that the flights are often pretty quiet I didn't want to pay when there's a good chance we'll just move into other seats anyway (even on Ryanair I have moved to the extra-legroom seats by the emergency exits as they had not been taken).

Their website may be faulty at the moment as when I've tried to look at anything in their menu it just keeps defaulting to their ticket page where you book a flight, so I'll try again later.

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby ajtg1952 » Sun Jan 17, 2016 12:03 pm

Wicksey wrote:Vueling say you can have a seat allocated online for free ..... you don't have to pay for one if you don't want a particular seat. We have travelled numerous times with them and have never had to pay for a seat.
I'm getting confused. They do allocate you a seat free but only when you check in, which is 7 days before the flight. If you pay for a seat you can check in 4 weeks before the flight. I think that makes perfect business sense. Norwegian will only allocate you your free seat 24 hours before your flight.

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Wicksey
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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby Wicksey » Sun Jan 17, 2016 1:08 pm

Yes you are exactly right.

What initially happened to me was that I was trying to check in within the 7 days for my free seat and got the message I copied earlier (Once the number of seats set aside for this service has been reached, .....), which seemed to indicate that the number of freely allocated seats was limited.

However ..... there must have been a glitch in the system as I have done it now and can also access the other website pages that weren't available earlier.

On a slightly different subject, now I have a new Smartphone I decided to also have the boarding passes sent to it to try it out (in addition to printing them out). Someone once said on here that you can't get both passengers' boarding passes sent to the same phone number, but you can. I see I can save them as images so have them all now on the phone just in case. It was just useful to try it out and see how it works as I have only just dragged myself into the 21st century when it comes to phones :oops:

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby ajtg1952 » Sun Jan 17, 2016 1:18 pm

My wife does not have a smart phone so both boarding passes are on my phone. Never had a problem except with an Easyjet flight from Liverpool when the gate agent said that is wasn't allowed to have both on one phone. I blocked the gate and asked if she would show me that in writing. On your way, she said.

I have also found that in UK airports when asked to remove my shoes at security I now ask for a seat and a long handled shoe horn or assistance with putting my shoes back on. Without fail my shoes are permitted to stay on.

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby IreneD » Sun Jan 15, 2017 7:25 pm

Wicksey, I am just Googling Vueling and saw your post! My OH and I are travelling with them, for the first time, in a few weeks. We got very cheap flights - I think they were something like 5.99 euros each way, Malaga to Birmingham and we decided to go mad and did pay for the Optima seats at the back when we booked.

We normally fly with Ryanair and always pay for Priority Boarding but I can't see a way of adding that...... I see they do have different seat prices, so I expect we just picked the cheapest, when we were booking. I am thinking maybe their Priority is for the higher priced seats. Am I right?

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby Lyric » Sun Jan 15, 2017 8:03 pm

Mrs W, indulge me, why down the back with the noise and not at the front fwd of the fan, quieter ?

Who gave you the phone :)

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby costakid » Sun Jan 15, 2017 11:06 pm

Have you ever heard of an aircraft reversing into a mountain? Safest place at the back. LOL

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Wicksey
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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby Wicksey » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:10 am

Lyric wrote:Mrs W, indulge me, why down the back with the noise and not at the front fwd of the fan, quieter ?

Who gave you the phone :)
Very funny Mr L!

We don't pay for seats but allow them to be allocated and they tend to be in the back few rows, but we have always been seated together (up to now anyway), unlike Ryanair where we have ended up apart. Vueling board from the rear seats first, or have two queues for front end and rear of the plane, so we have always found we get on pretty quickly. There are often quite a few spare seats at the back and so we often get a row of 3 to ourselves.

Irene, we haven't paid for seats at the time of booking so not sure how that works. When you want to check in, then on that page you'll get the option to choose your own seats. You then get taken to the plan of the plane with all the seat prices and you can choose where you want to sit from the available seats. Rows 2-4 are 'priority', costing 15.99€. Rows 5-14 cost 8.99 and then beyond that vary between 6.99 and 3.99€. I have a flight booked for March with them, so I have just gone through and looked at the available seats (without having to go any further with the checking in procedure).

When they used to have a 4 day limit for free seats then we did have to pay for our return flight's seats and we did that when we checked in a few days before we were due to travel.

We leave it until 7 days before the flight to check in then get the free seats both ways as we only go away for 4 nights usually. (All those little savings help us pay for things like a new Smartphone Mr L :lol: :lol: )

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby Lyric » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:37 am

Have you ever heard of an aircraft reversing into a mountain
In my experience if they hit a mountain where you are sitting matters not a jot.

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby alisonb » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:55 am

We don't fly with Vueling normally but went with them into Cardiff, and paid for priority boarding. At the gate, when asked where the two queues were they said there was only one and we could queue with the rest of them. All the passengers with priority boarding were stood together, so we staged a minor revolt, and someone came and passed us through. I had paid for extra legroom, but the seat width was massive compared to Ryanair. I don't expect they put special seats in, so maybe Vueling cater better for those of us with Spanish bums
AlisonB

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IreneD
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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby IreneD » Mon Jan 16, 2017 1:12 pm

Thanks, Wicksey and Alison - I think I've got it :) We did pay for and choose our seats when we booked, (row 25, I think) which added about £16 in total for flights out and return. I imagine you bought the more expensive seats to ensure you got priority boarding, Alison. It will be interesting to see how it works. We always pay for priority boarding with Ryanair - it's nice to get seated early and just watch the hoards battling to put their cases away and sit - some of them blocking the aisle for ages. If we find we will now be amongst the battlers, I doubt we'll fly Vueling again - and I suppose, like Ryanair, if you are amongst the last to get on, there won't be room for hand luggage and it will be put in the hold.....

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby markwilding » Mon Jan 16, 2017 1:44 pm

The reality is none of the seats are free because you pay to fly sitting down. The extra you pay for is to be able to chose your seat. I never bother as it's just a wheeze to get more money out of customers. Priority boarding is another waste of money if you are like me and always allow plenty of time before the flight to get the airport. I tend to be quite close to the front of the queue to board hence I'm just behind the priority boarders.

I fly quite regularly and there is no real pattern to where I sit. On a Ryanair fight recently I was at the back going out and in row 6 coming back.

I'm on an EasyJet flight on Friday row 16 out and 19 back and I checked in 30 days before for before both flights.

Irene is correct when she says that you don't be one of the last on if you want to get away quickly from the airport the other end because they might have to put your hand luggage in the hold .
Last edited by markwilding on Mon Jan 16, 2017 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby IreneD » Mon Jan 16, 2017 7:05 pm

Mark, if we don't book Priority, we seem to be very bad at getting near the front of the normal queue to board, even if we hover over the gate announcement screens and go as soon as poss......maybe we don't run fast enough, I don't know :think: My family wouldn't pay extra and seem to manage it OK. We will have to try extra hard with our non priority Vueling flights :thumbup:

Maybe it's a matter of luck, we travelled out with a grandson and his friend a while ago, we were last in the priority queue and they were first in the normal queue, so we got on the flight together!

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby costakid » Mon Jan 16, 2017 7:23 pm

Lyric wrote:
Have you ever heard of an aircraft reversing into a mountain
In my experience if they hit a mountain where you are sitting matters not a jot.
That was said in jest

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Wicksey
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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby Wicksey » Tue Jan 17, 2017 10:16 am

I fly more with Vueling than Ryanair and up to now have never had our hand luggage taken off us. I use them to fly to the Canaries and we often seem to be the only Brits on board although that doesn't seem to make any difference to the amount of hand luggage that needs storing.

Irene, look out at the boarding gate to see if they have the option of rows 1-14 and 15- 31. I find people don't notice and all queue together and we have just walked straight on as we are always allocated seat at the back. Or listen out for the announcements as sometimes they have announced it is loading from the rear numbered seats first.

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby IreneD » Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:20 pm

Thanks very much for the tips, Wicksey. Depending on how this goes and if we like them well enough to use them again, from what you've said, there is no real advantage in paying for seats in advance so won't do that again.

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Re: Vueling seat allocation

Postby Loopy Lisa » Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:44 pm

I've not flown with this airline as they don't seem to fly direct to London when I've looked. But if you fly easyjet and don't want to pay for hold luggage but want to take prohibited items we've done the voluntary surrender at the airport and not had to pay for the luggage it just has to be hand luggage size, even better we've had another bag as well that we can take on board.
And I've never paid for my seat, I refuse on principle and in all honesty both myself and OH have travelled on business so we are used to having nobody with us!


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