How my travel life changed after courtship!

Gaah, this is something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while, and I hope Shipra will take this in good spirit. I have been noticing a pattern and I just want to have it off my chest. Winking smile

As a top-tier with most airlines I do business with, I am usually given the opportunity to select the nicer seats out there, sometimes by virtue of pre-selection, sometimes by virtue of checking in 48 hours prior. Because Uncle Scrooge did not pass on his wealth to me yet, I am still a predominantly Economy class flyer on a lot of the domestic segments that I do. Now, back in the day, I was almost always to be found on 10C or 10D, the aisle seats in the bulkhead. But, for over a year now, I’m seeing that change.

Initially, when we started flying around together, Shipra would take the window seats (she likes them), and I would usually book the aisle seat, because I still loved the access. Sometimes, we’d get the middle seat empty between us. But of late, it is not. Planes are packed again, and as a result, I find myself moving into the middle seat more and more often.

Earlier, it would also happen that Shipra had no status on airlines. So, I had to always pre-book the kind of seats where we could almost always get good seats without status. Which meant the row 10 was out of the picture.

So go figure when I sat on a plane in the middle row and the plane was delayed by an hour to take off.

Status ain’t everything. That is the lesson I’ve learned over a period of time.

Any one of you notice things change getting a better half in your life?

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About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. last time we flew, I was in biz class and my wife in economy. Thankfully at least my status allowed a companion in the lounge.

    Need I say anything else?

  2. I’m normally moving around and through airports at around Mach#2 when traveling for work (Yes, I consider it a win at all costs race from the gate to the taxi/uber

  3. Initially the same thing happened to me, but at some point it became truly obvious to my girlfriend (and later wife) how much I hated flying in the middle seat when forced to change. Finally, she told me that she didn’t care if we were one seat apart for a few hours of flight time and so we switched back to aisle/window. Since then our flying has been mostly smooth and everything has worked out fine. Plus, I no longer have to explain strange routings that I concocted to get on MD-80s. 🙂

    • @Robert, my post was no way a complaint. Just last evening, I gave up on 10C to be in 10B with her. 🙂

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