Travel influencer reveals hack to avoid middle seats on flights for free

As airlines continue charging extra for seat selection, one travel influencer claims he’s found a way to beat the system — by temporarily blocking middle seats for free.

Jordan Tually, who has more than 450,000 Instagram followers, demonstrated a “100% perfect” technique for securing preferred seats on Ryanair flights without paying seat selection fees. The method involves temporarily blocking middle seats during the booking process.

This viral video, revealing a method to avoid middle seats on budget airlines without paying extra fees, has sparked debate over airline booking practices and passenger ethics. Tually showed viewers his process while booking a Ryanair flight from Bologna, Italy to Barcelona, Spain. The standard seat selection fee was $9, which Tually could completely avoid.

“This travel hack has saved me from many a middle seat over the years,” Tually said in the video. “It’s actually never failed me and has a 100% perfect record when done correctly!”

The method involves initiating multiple fake bookings to hold middle seats during the booking process temporarily. According to Tually’s demonstration, users should enter random letters for passenger names and proceed to seat selection, where they block all undesirable middle seats. 

The airline’s website holds these seats for approximately 10 minutes. During this period, passengers can complete their booking, forcing the system to assign them a non-middle seat through random allocation since the middle seats appear unavailable.

“When you go to check in with your ticket, you can see that there are no more middle seats,” Tually explained in the video. “So click that random seat allocation... and just like that. It only took me two minutes, and now I have a window seat.”

Tually advised that the technique works best when executed on a computer rather than a mobile device, and closer to check-in time when fewer seats remain available.

The video has generated mixed reactions from viewers. Some praised the strategy, with one commenter writing, “Any win over Ryanair is a win for humanity.” Others expressed concern that publicizing the technique could lead to its elimination.

An individual claiming to be a Ryanair employee commented on the post: “I’m a product owner working for Ryanair, and I just created a ticket in Jira to prevent such behavior. Thanks for reporting!”

Critics of the approach questioned its ethics and practicality. “This is not a hack. It is being cheap,” wrote one commenter, suggesting that passengers should “focus this much energy on making more money” to afford premium seating instead.

The technique highlights the ongoing tension between airlines’ ancillary revenue strategies and passengers’ attempts to avoid extra fees. Airlines have increasingly unbundled services like seat selection, making them optional add-ons rather than including them in base fares.

Ryanair has not officially responded to the viral video or indicated whether it plans to modify its booking system to prevent this practice.

Analysts note that while such strategies can be effective in the short term, they often result in airlines tightening their booking policies.

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