Checked reel · 14 Oct 2026
Airline reservation systems temporarily lock seats in your cart for about 10 to 15 minutes while you process a purchase. By opening a second browser session to pretend to buy tickets and selecting the middle seats, those seats get frozen in the system. When you execute your real check-in with random assignment during that short window, the algorithm is forced to give you a remaining window or aisle seat instead. The only limitation is that the flight must still have unsold ticket inventory available so you can start that fake booking. If the flight is completely sold out, you won't be able to open a new booking session to lock anything.
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