Skift Take
The commoditization of airline seats makes services such as ExpertFlyer's Seat Alerts essential for the savvy traveler. You snooze, you lose.
Ignorance is not bliss in travel, and a blitz of new alert and notification tools are helping savvy travelers stay better-informed.
ExpertFlyer has just extended its Seat Alerts tool from the desktop and its mobile site to an iPhone app for the first time.
As airlines become stingier with free window and aisle seats in economy class, and push premium seats with more legroom and prime front-of-the cabin positions for a fee, staying informed in a timely fashion becomes essential if you are looking for a comfy and productive flight.
Seat maps and reviews
With the ExpertFlyer Seat Alerts app, you can view airline seat maps and also seat reviews from SeatGuru, set up alerts for window and aisle seats, for example. You can even establish an alert for a particular seat.
And, then ExpertFlyer sends you a notification when your choice becomes available, although you’ll have to contact your travel agency or airline to actually secure the seat.
The free service gives you one seat alert at a time for any window seat, any aisle seat or any seat.
You get four seat alerts with a basic account ($4.99 per month), and 30 flight and seat alerts combined with a premium account ($9.99 per month).
ExpertFlyer also has an award and upgrade tool to view airlines’ hidden award and upgrade seat options.
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