Viral travel hacks have been taking over social media, but some may not be as effective or considered to be ethical.
A seat hack is grabbing the attention of Instagram users after a travel enthusiast posted the tip on his personal page, garnering more than 22 million views.
Jorden Tually, a 31-year-old Australian content creator, posted a video to share his “avoid the middle seat when flying travel hack.”
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Tually has more than 3 million followers on TikTok and shares his adventures around the world while on a budget, sometimes even traveling for free.
“Did you know with budget airlines if you click random seat allocation they will intentionally put you in the middle seat in the hopes that you pay money to get out of it?” Tually said in his viral video. “I’m not going to pay nine bucks for a friggin’ window seat.”
He went on to detail his process of avoiding the middle seat when flying.
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Tually pulled up an image of his flight, showing a variety of middle seats still open and some window and aisle seats also available.
Instead of checking in immediately, Tually opens his browser to the exact flight he is on and pretends to buy all the middle seats on his flight. In his case, it was 10 middle seats.
The website proceeded to ask for each passenger’s name, so Tually typed in a bunch of random letters as a placeholder.
During the next step, he chooses all the middle seats or “seats that you definitely do not want to be sitting in” before returning to his actual check-in.
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“When you do this, the system is going to hold those seats for about 10 to 15 minutes, and that’s when you book yours,” Tually says in his video.
“So when you go to check in with your authentic ticket, you can see that there’s no more middle seat.”
When Tually went back to his check-in page and clicked through the random seat allocation button, he was given a window seat.
Fox News Digital reached out to Tually for comment.
“To me, this middle seat hack is not going to save you enough money for the time it’ll take to make it happen,” Adam Duckworth, president and founder of Travelmation, told Fox News Digital via email.
“This video claims the process happens in about 2 minutes, but I would say it would take the average user quite a bit longer,” Duckworth wrote.
Aside from it not being as timely, Duckworth went beyond the actual mechanics of the hack by questioning its ethics.
“I also question how ethical this hack is. You are pretending to book seats you have no intention of keeping, which is harmful to the airlines and other passengers who may be looking for seats at that time,” Duckworth said.
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Other social media users joined in on the conversation by commenting on Tually’s video.
“Finally my algorithm shows me something useful!,” one Instagram user posted.
“Modern problems require modern solutions,” another person commented.
“BRO that’s pretty genius!! Thanks for sharing this epic hack,” one user added.
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While a lot of users found the hack to be “genius,” others found it to be problematic.
“So because people like YOU are the flights so EXPENSIVE these days! You should be ashamed,” another Instagram user wrote.
“Shameful. People buy cheapest flights but then cheat on buying the seats as well. Then after that they obviously complain about those cheap airlines. Be more mature and fair towards others who actually pay for those seats,” one user commented.
Duckworth encourages people to know their preferences and keep those at the forefront of their mind when traveling, especially when it comes to budget airlines and travel.
“If you’re looking for a budget-friendly environment, then just know you’re going to end up with a budget-friendly seat,” Duckworth added.
“The tip I always give is to factor the cost of the flight into your vacation. Find a flight that best fits within your budget, pick your seat when booking and enjoy your trip without the headache of trying to trick the system.”
