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Related to this question, but in my case I actually am in the situation where all normal seats are occupied.

This is what happens here: the online check-in system is trying to force me to choose extra legroom seats (since only those are available) and pay the additional cost.

It won't let me proceed if I don't do that.

However, this company (Eurowings) does allow checking in in person at the airport at no cost: I am therefore wondering whether to not check in online, go to the ariport check-in gate and ask for the free seats since I think I am entitled to them.

Can I do that, or is the system right? Should I accept to pay the additional cost when all normal seats included in my ticket price are taken?

EDIT Unlike many others, I'm not necessarily inclined to see malice from them here. I have chosen my free seats on their system many times before, always at no cost. This scenario, where all passengers with regular seats have already checked-in online seems quite uncommon and it may very well be that they forgot to implement a solution.

psmears
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Mario Trucco
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    Holy cow, I am shocked how borderline criminal the online system is designed. I am quite sure a lot of people in this situation will buy the upgrade because they are not aware of the legal and consumer rights. And I highly doubt that they simply forgot to add that to their system. – dirkk Nov 05 '17 at 12:41
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    "this company ... does allow to check-in in person" - has that possibility become so unusual by now? I'm getting old. – Hagen von Eitzen Nov 05 '17 at 14:01
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    @HagenvonEitzen It is certainly always possible, but many LCC (and Eurowings is the low cost airline from Lufthansa) charge you a hefty fee for that. – dirkk Nov 05 '17 at 15:04
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    Well that's a new one. I didn't check this one, but all (European) online check-in systems I've encountered, do their best to trick you in to choosing an seat at additional cost, but all (to the best of my knowledge) have an option to skip that, and be assigned a seat. Some of them are on the level of adware installation software (i.e. "Do you not want to not install this crappy software, at zero additional cost to the slightly increased price?"), but they all (as far as my experience goes) do. – Willem van Rumpt Nov 05 '17 at 16:58
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    Intimidation tactic. They want you to believe your only option is to pay the surcharge, because 80% of people will simply sigh and pay at that point. I'm honestly amazed that is allowed in the generally pro-consumer EU, and based on article 10(1) I suspect the website is actually engaging in an illegal practice, and I would report it. Still be careful this isn't "pilot error" on your part, they often make websites difficult or non-intuitive to use so they can show the regulator "see, you just do this and it works". On the other hand, sometimes websites are broken! – Harper - Reinstate Monica Nov 05 '17 at 17:39
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    @HagenvonEitzen Ryanair is famous for charging extra 50€ if you don't check-in online – Mario Trucco Nov 05 '17 at 17:56
  • Do you have a reservation for a particular seat? – Acccumulation Nov 05 '17 at 23:42
  • @WillemvanRumpt I don't think that this scenario is very common. All passengers have already checked-in online, so that no free seats are left? Odd. That's why I'm not necessarly inclined to think that's due to malice – Mario Trucco Nov 06 '17 at 09:38
  • @MarioTrucco: That's probably then why I've never encountered it. In my, quite extensive (IMHO) experience within Europe, I've always been able to just check-in online, without being forced to pay extra for a seat. Some airlines do "obfuscate" the path towards unpaid seat selection (or automatic assignment), but I've never been required to pay. – Willem van Rumpt Nov 06 '17 at 12:06
  • Eurowings has a terrible website. If I use the Italian version of the site to check in, I get an error as soon as I try to get the boarding pass by email. Switch to English and the problem disappears. It's been like this for a couple of years now, and yes, I have informed them, but they don't seem to care. So I agree what happened to you isn't malice, but at the same time don't expect them to fix it anytime soon. – Fabio says Reinstate Monica Nov 06 '17 at 15:07
  • "they forgot to implement a solution" my ass... that's a feature they implemented to try to squeeze some extra bucks out from you. Do whatever you like but be sure to twitter your problem to some major media twitter account, speak loud and spread the thing... media are always eager to tell about airlines crazy tactics – Gianluca Ghettini Nov 07 '17 at 08:57
  • @Harper-ReinstateMonica Eurowings is a German company. Germany is not as pro-consumer as you might think. As just one example, many subscription services in Germany require you to cancel weeks or months before the expiration date or be automatically enrolled for another year...and be sent to collections if you decline to pay. I assume this is perfectly legal, as even Deutsche Bahn does it. – Kyralessa Jan 08 '20 at 14:11

4 Answers4

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I got their reply on twitter:

You will be able to check in at the airport. My colleagues will assign you a seat for free

As to whether or not a check in fee will be added the answer is no: with eurowings you can check in in person at no cost. The online process just speeds it up, allowing you to skip the queue when you have no stored luggage, and lets you choose the seat earlier

Mario Trucco
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  • @dotancohen where does such a "in-person check in counter fee" exist? at least that doesn't exist in norway nor vietnam, and i've never heard of that fee before – hanshenrik Nov 06 '17 at 12:05
  • But you risk being bumped. Still... principal? – vikingsteve Nov 06 '17 at 12:41
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    @hanshenrik Mostly only on ultra-low-cost carriers. Traditional carriers normally aren't quite that bad about nickel and diming you. Probably the most egregious example is that Ryanair charges 50 EUR or 50 GBP for it! And, even if you've already checked in, if you need to re-print your boarding pass at the airport, that's another 15 EUR/GBP. Oh, and if you're due a refund of government taxes/fees, there's a fee for giving you the refund! – reirab Nov 06 '17 at 17:55
  • If the company as a telephone number and a human can do it, it might be done for free over phone too. – Rui F Ribeiro Nov 07 '17 at 09:06
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    Anecdotally, this exact thing just happened to me yesterday (with the same company). The app told me I cannot check-in online and I was slightly upset about that. After checking in at the counter, I realised only on entering the plane that I had been silently updated. No extra fees included. – skymningen Nov 07 '17 at 10:07
  • @skymningen this is interesting. In my case (desktop website) I wasn't told that I could not check in. Instead, I was asked to choose a seat, but only costly ones were available to selection – Mario Trucco Nov 07 '17 at 10:14
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To answer more generally:

If the flight is covered by the EU Flight Compensation Regulation (all Eurowings flights are so), the airline is not allowed to charge the passenger for an upgrade in this situation.

Article 10(1): If an operating air carrier places a passenger in a class higher than that for which the ticket was purchased, it may not request any supplementary payment.

The airline could however probably instead choose to deny you boarding (due to overbooking) and compensate you accordingly without violating the regulation.

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
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    Can the flight be considered overbooked if there are free seats somewhere? I thought overbooking required that the number of passengers exceeds the total capacity of the plane, not individual classes. – D Krueger Nov 05 '17 at 13:17
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    This would not be overbooking: there are seats available in the class the passenger booked. The online system will be programmed to charge for those seats but the human at the terminal check in will not make the charge, as indicated by the tweet the customer posted earlier. – user16259 Nov 05 '17 at 13:22
  • @DKrueger I can't see why or where the airline is required to transport a passenger in a better class if the originally booked class is full. It is in most cases probably easier and cheaper for the airline to do so, but not a fixed requirement. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Nov 05 '17 at 13:29
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    @user16259 No, there were no free seats in the class the OP had booked. That was the reason why he could not check in online. The online check in system was not able to give him a seat in a better class without charging for it, but the check-in agents at the airport will upgrade him for free to give him a better, but available seat. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Nov 05 '17 at 13:31
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    @Tor-EinarJarnbjo Are extra legroom seats a different class, or not? – Yakk Nov 05 '17 at 15:44
  • @Yakk For any reasonable definition of 'class', sure. You pay a more expensive ticket to get more space, better food or other frills. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Nov 05 '17 at 16:01
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    I took the original reference to extra legroom seats to mean the ones next to an exit. These are sold as part of the same class as the other seats in the vicinity and do not form a separate class from the airline's point of view. My reasoning is, if they were a separate class, that class would be an option at time of booking, not just during seat selection. – user16259 Nov 05 '17 at 16:14
  • @tor I am talkimg about law, not reasonableness. – Yakk Nov 05 '17 at 16:36
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    @user16259 I understood perfectly well, that we are talking about seats with extra legroom at the emergency exits. If an airline sells some seats with more space or more room for a premium fee, that fulfil IMHO every reasonable definition of a class upgrade, no matter what marketing label the airline decide to use for this extra frill. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Nov 05 '17 at 20:33
  • I wouldn't care if they were first class seats. The airline sold a ticket on a flight. The airline needs to put him on that flight if there's a seat anywhere. – Joshua Nov 05 '17 at 21:38
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    @joshua That is very unlikely. Just because you "feel" something is right doesn't mean the contract the person entered into with the LCC makes it right. The amount of entitlement currently in the EU in general seems staggering. The approach of "I want to pay for the low cost airline but want the state to legislate that the low cost airline provide what the normal cost does," is annoying. Particularly for those of us that actually want to be able to use the low cost airline and not have it go our of business. – DRF Nov 06 '17 at 19:04
  • @DRF: I'm not even in the EU. – Joshua Nov 06 '17 at 19:29
  • @Tor-EinarJarnbjo While those emergency seats give you more legroom, they also require you to work in the case of an emergency. That should (but i guess doesn't) negate each other and be considered the same as the other seats. I can't see how they could ethically charge you more (as opposed to legally, which I agree, wouldn't be likely) . –  Nov 06 '17 at 20:53
  • @Joshua And the airline wouldn't care if they sold you a ticket... so they wouldn't need to do anything except as stated in the answer. –  Nov 06 '17 at 20:55
  • @AytAyt: On the other hand we've seen that somebody bumped from first class to coach because of the air marshal doesn't always get money back. – Joshua Nov 06 '17 at 21:38
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The same just happened to me today. I tried different browsers from my PC, but on a one-stop route I could only select a seat for free on just one airplane. It seemed like I could not select anything but an 18€ seat on the other airplane, nor an option to skip that step, in spite of their disclaimer:

Seat reservation You can reserve a seat even after you have bought your ticket. You can do so up to the end of the check-in procedure before departure online or via our call centre. There is a fee per seat reservation (depending on the fare bracket) per passenger and leg (on domestic German flights add VAT). If you do not reserve a seat, you will automatically be allocated one at no extra cost when you check in.

Anyway, I tried to check-in from my mobile and even though I could only select "larger seats" again, it did not show any price attached to that. Basically I got a larger seat at no cost.

Hope this helps!

Glorfindel
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D-tack
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with the app you can choose your free seat enjoy, the company try to get our money, but if you think that maybe old people that they are not very good with technology will pay for the seat the company make lots of money, they just take advantage

Francesco
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  • Are you trying to say that Eurowings has a ticketing app where seat selection is free? If so you should include link to the app and maybe some examples of free seat bookings. – RedBaron Dec 21 '18 at 10:10
  • I confirm this just worked for me. I downloaded the app from the AppStore. When I went to the check-in, no additional cost was required when selecting that seat. Only extra-legroom seat were availalble. – fe_lix_ Aug 30 '19 at 06:23
  • I agree, if you download the app you can select the exact same seats that they try and charge you £18 for on the web, but for free on the app! – Hannah Fryer Oct 10 '19 at 18:18