How to get a better airline seat by cheating.

I almost did not want to re-post this little trick as it seems too good to be true.  I have not tried it, but wish I would have known about it before my recent trip to Hawaii where we had to sit apart because we booked it separately.   I will be trying it on my next flight.  Let me know if you have any success...

Reposted from LifeHacker

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How to lie, cheat and steal your way to a perfect flight.

Flying generally sucks, but it doesn't have to be awful. If you're willing to break a few rules and compromise your status as an upstanding moral citizen, the dark side has a few secrets to help you have a more enjoyable flight.

One of the wonderful things you get, thanks to the internet, is the ability to choose your seat online when you book a flight. The problem is, so many of those seats are reserved for people who have some sort of priority status or are willing to pay around $25 to sit in a seat that's mildly better than the one the airline assigns them. If you feel you deserve a better seat for the price of your patronage and don't want to pay a fee, wait until 24 hours before your flight, or fly the same airline so much that they give you special status, sometimes there's a way around these restrictions.

Some airlines handle seat selections through the URL. Why? I have no idea. It's stupid, because URLs are easy to hack. When you select a seat by clicking on it, often times that seat is sent through a URL variable as you travel to the next page. You might see something like http://someairline.com/checkin/seatassignment.php?seat=4A, but it'll likely have a few more variables and be a bit more difficult to parse at first glance. Make an initial seat assignment, note the seat number and letter, and watch the URL to see where your seat appears. Copy the URL, finish up the process, and then go back to change your seat again. When you get to the selection screen, pick a seat that you want that's reserved for someone the airline likes better than you (e.g. an exit row seat or other premium-type seat that's free for special people). Paste in the URL that you copied but change the seat to the premium seat you want. Hit enter and watch your seat assignment change to the fancy seat like it was selectable all along.

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