Air Canada/WestJet - Extra Seat

[cdn_tbird]

I'm looking to book our tickets to Vancouver for our upcoming Alaska cruise and hoping someone in this forum may have some recent experience paying for an extra seat on one of our two lovely major airlines.

 

With ticket prices tumbling recently, I can book a refundable economy ticket with an extra legroom seat for about a quarter the cost of a premium economy/business class ticket. Both my son & I are over 6'6" and DW and daughter are no slouches at 6' either, I figured dropping an extra grand on a 5 hour flight would be well worth it especially with my hip & knee problems.

 

TIA.

[TeaBag]

Why can you not book an exit row?  

[Fouremco]

37 minutes ago, TeaBag said:

Why can you not book an exit row?  

You can, but it will cost you $65 for the preferred seat on Air Canada. Using a dummy booking in May, if you book in Comfort Economy rather than Standard Economy, it will cost $136 more, but that includes not only a preferred seat, but multiple flight changes, same day standby, and higher loyalty points. Plus the fare is fully refundable. That's quite a bit more for only $71 more than purchasing the preferred seat alone, and with today's uncertainty with cruises, the fully refundable ticket benefit is well worth the $71 IMO. I've had two cruises cancelled during the pandemic, and each time I've had my refund within a couple of days, so for me, the slightly higher cost for Comfort Economy has been well worth the price.

[cdn_tbird]

6 hours ago, TeaBag said:

Why can you not book an exit row?  

While both my son & I are physically fit, being over 6'6" means we're also proportionally wider than the average person and the fixed armrests are a pain in the side. When I fly, I usually fly business class but right now that would equate to over $7k CDN for 4 round trip tickets.

[cdn_tbird]

Problem solved. 😁 DW told me to "suck it up buttercup" and just book 4 seats, no need to splurge on empty seats. 😁

[cdn_tbird]

@waiting2retire Love your username. Care to sell it? I'm down to between 3 and 8 yrs to that goal depending on whether my company packages me off or not. 😄😄😄

[gnome12]

I thought that @waiting2retirehad actually retired. I thought there was some discussion a while ago about changing user names. But I may be wrong!

[waiting2retire]

@gnome12 you are quite right!  I was fortunate enough to achieve Freedom 55 about five years after I created my CC profile 😁

 

@cdn_tbird thanks and good luck with your own retirement plan!  It’s awesome 😎