The seat-map trick that makes first class easier for families

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First class is great on a six-hour flight to Hawaii… until you’re booking three or more seats.

On several occasions over the past few years, my wife, our son, and I have flown multiple 6+ hour legs. It’s a long enough journey to make you consider either spending more cash or points in order to fly first class.

The core issue, as larger families can attest, is the sheer amount of points or cash needed when you’re looking at three or more seats.

If you’re flying with a family, there’s an out-of-the-box approach that may enable your crew to make such a trip happen if it would otherwise be slightly out of reach.

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If three or more first-class seats are out of reach for your family, you may be tempted to do one of two things: forget the trip entirely, or seat everyone in economy. There’s another option to consider, and it’s worked out quite well for us.

On trips like these, where I know we’d value time in the first-class cabin, I always check a flight’s seating chart before booking. Find your preferred flight, and click through the booking flow without completing the purchase.

Most airlines will allow you to peek at the seating chart before ringing the register, and Aerolopa is an excellent resource for this as well.

Here’s what I look for: the last two seats in the final row of first class to be open, plus the aisle seat of the first row behind first class. If those are open, I’ll book my wife and son into the first class cabin and I’ll sit directly behind them.

This makes the total trip much cheaper since my ticket is in Comfort+ (some airlines refer to this section as Economy+) instead of first class. I still enjoy a great experience: I’m close enough that I can still talk to them and help with handing them items from the overhead. Plus, if it’s an aircraft with a soft bulkhead — meaning there’s no physical wall immediately behind the first-class cabin — I also get ample legroom to stretch out under their seats.

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Depending on how many points and miles I have available, I sometimes mix cash and rewards. I might book the first-class seats with points and the economy seat with cash, or vice-versa.

To make the experience more equitable, you may also consider rotating who sits in which cabin — someone can take the proverbial upgrade on the outbound, and then another person takes it on the return.

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