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A woman has explained why she refused to swap seats with a six-year-old boy so he could sit in first class with his mom.
After she was made to feel guilty by the flight attendant and the young boy’s mom, the woman took to Reddit’s popular confession forum, Am I The A**hole, to ask others if they thought she was in the wrong. The Reddit poster admitted her boyfriend didn’t believe so.
“A few weeks ago, my (21F) boyfriend (27M) surprised me with a first-class ticket for a long-haul flight,” she started. “He’s been doing well in his career and wanted to treat me, and I was really excited because I’d never flown first class before.”
The duo was set to embark on two 12-hour flights back-to-back, and the airline they were flying with was well-known for its first-class section. According to the Redditor, she wasn’t accustomed to the luxurious nature of first-class, especially because she’d never flown in anything other than economy class.
She noted: “I grew up lower middle class, and I had never ever flown higher than the cheapest seats on a plane before.”
That said, the Reddit user’s experience was abruptly interrupted 20 minutes before the flight took off.
“A flight attendant approached me with a woman and a young kid (maybe around six years old),” the Redditor explained. “The woman explained that she had booked a first-class ticket for herself and her son, but due to a booking error, he ended up in economy.”
The mother thought she’d ask the Reddit writer if she’d switch her seat with her son for him to experience first class, too. The Redditor wasn’t interested. Though she felt sorry for the child, she explained that her first-class seat was a gift from her boyfriend, and she wanted to sit in it as much as the mom wanted her son to.
She added: “I politely declined and explained that it was my first time in first class and I wanted to experience it.”
“The woman seemed pretty upset and tried to argue that her son would appreciate it more than me, and that it was unfair because I didn’t even pay for the ticket myself,” the Redditor continued.
According to the woman, it seemed the flight attendant agreed with the mother, urging her to be more “understanding.” At this point, the original poster’s boyfriend was fed up. He went on a whole spiel to the flight attendant and the mom about how he was a frequent flyer and platinum customer who often booked trips for his business through the airline.
When the Redditor’s boyfriend threatened to “take his business elsewhere,” the mother walked away with her son, leading him back to business class. Still, the Reddit user said the flight attendant was quietly judging and glaring at her the entire trip.
The opinions the writer got from her close friends varied. “When I told my boyfriend about it, he said I did nothing wrong and that it was my ticket to use and that he stood up for me because I had the seat on my ticket and it was disrespectful for her to even ask for my seat in the first place,” she admitted.
However, a couple of friends disagreed. “Some of my friends think I should have given up my seat to the kid, saying that it would have been the kind thing to do, especially since I didn’t pay for the ticket myself,” she added.
Yet, online, most readers thought the mom was at fault, arguing her “booking error” wasn’t believable.
“Booking error my a**. That mom was trying to get a first class seat at economy prices,” one person claimed, while another reader noted: “If that woman really wanted her son to experience the first class seat, she could have switched HER seat with him. This whole incident is so bizarre.”
A third remarked: “I have no idea why they were so adamant about you moving, it was not YOUR fault that they had a BOOKING ERROR.”
“And did they ask every member of First Class to trade? Or just OP?” one Reddit user questioned.
One flyer argued: “No one should ever even be allowed to ask to switch seats.”
