A few weeks ago I wrote about my plan to get a good seat on Frontier without paying anything for seat selection. If you have flown Frontier before, you probably know that they charge you to pick any seat and are very pushy in their online checkin for you to pick a seat. If you choose not to pay for a seat, you’ll get a seat assigned to you when you check in (starting at 24 hours before the flight)
The basics of how to get a good seat on Frontier
My plan on how to get a good seat on Frontier was hatched after noticing and reading reports that when Frontier starts assigning seats when people check in at the 24 hour period, they start at the back of the plane and assign those seats. So (the theory went), you could get a good seat on Frontier by delaying your check-in until the last possible moment.
But…. would it work? I had a recent flight on Frontier so resolved to test my theory on how to get a good seat on Frontier. I was flying by myself, so didn’t have to worry about flying with my family
(SEE ALSO: Experts on flying Frontier with a family share their tricks)
Did my plan on how to get a good seat on Frontier work?
I had a 9:30 a.m. flight on Frontier – here’s how my seat map looked at 9:30 the day before (T-24 hours)
Still plenty of seats available – and then here’s a larger view of what it looked like at 5pm the night before (T-16 hours before flight)
Tragically, I had to wake up at 3:45 a.m. in order to catch my ride up to Denver (the person driving the car had a much earlier flight), but here’s what the seatmap looked like then (T-6 hours).
Still plenty of good seats left and you can see Frontier filling up the plane from the rear. Would my plan to get a good seat on Frontier work?
I just hung out in the Denver airport for a bit – at 6:21, 3 hours before takeoff, here’s what we looked like.
At 7:50 a.m. (90 minutes before takeoff), we were down to 5 exit row seats, 4 front of the plane seats, and 2 back of the plane windows. I was just hanging out in the airport, working on some blog posts and monitoring my seatmap. One important distinction is that I couldn’t go through security yet because I didn’t have a boarding pass, which was mildly annoying.
8E went next, and then 10D just after 8 a.m. A few minutes later, the other 2 seats in row 10 went. That left us 5 exit row seats and 2 window seats in the back. At this point, I was feeling pretty good about my odds to get a good seat on Frontier for free.
30A (one of the 2 window seats in the back) was filled at 8:11 a.m., and then 12A, B and C at 8:19 a.m., leaving only 3 seats left.
The downsides to this plan to get a good seat on Frontier
It’s at this point I should point out 2 of the risks of this plan to get a good Frontier seat without paying. I’ve already mentioned that you don’t get a boarding pass until you check-in, so you’re stuck behind security. Also, Frontier has a HARD deadline of checking in 60 minutes before flight time online or through a kiosk or 45 minutes at the counter. If you miss that deadline (even by a minute), you will MISS your flight
The second risk of this plan is that if the flight is oversold, you run the risk of being denied boarding. In my case, I was okay running that risk because I was flying by myself and also had nowhere to be the whole day. Plus, I could check by trying to buy a ticket that there were still seats available to purchase.
In any case, I had finally decided I’d waited enough, and I was hungry for an omelet at the Priority Pass DEN lounge – the Timberline Steak House, so I checked in.
Naturally I got seat 30E 😀
Still, I was happy with my seat – it was a completely full flight and I was glad to not have to sit in a middle seat, even if I was further back than I wanted to be. The flight was late, which I knew because I used my handy trick to determine if your flight is going to be delayed. As I was boarding, I asked the guy in 10D (one of the last seats to be assigned) when he had checked in. He said he checked in that morning and did not PAY for a seat.
So it seems like the optimal strategy to get a good seat on Frontier for free is to check in but perhaps wait until the back of the plane is filled up but not wait QUITE as long as I did
I’d love to hear other comments from people who’ve tried to get a good seat on Frontier with this strategy – leave your data points in the comments
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Great article, but to do this you have to actually have to fly Frontier. Nothing is worth that
I agree! After years of acquiring miles and flights to achieve Elite tier, I burned my miles with this nonsense airline and quit for Southwest. Besides the fact that Southwest has numerous flights from Milwaukee and free bags, a semi decent seat compared to Frontier, a nice in flight magazine, free snacks and beverages I don’t think as but the minimal price difference. When I want to go somewhere it’s on MY schedule, not Frontiers, which from Milwaukee is pretty pitiful.
Thanks for sharing this “experience.” Almost a delight to read, a trick to fight back against the ever shrinking, miserable seating on Frontier. Hate it that we are now are forced to pay up, to be sure we can sit with the family (in the intensely painful, cattle car part of the plane — and I’m not that tall.)
Yeah, I know, super cheap flights, where the logic goes that we pay “only for what you need.” (oxygen and your knees not being needed)
Still, there are times when the whatever Frontier promo seems too good pass up (like last summer $23 fares, IAD to Colorado Springs) — so if I’m ever flying by myself, will remember this.
ps, I still have a legacy Frontier credit card — now no fee version. Too *mnd bad that card doesn’t come with any actual flight benefits (like luggage or seating or oxygen)
Think you mean 30F?
In fifty one minutes (doors close 20 minutes before scheduled take off) you got through security (Denver security, at that), had breakfast in Concourse C then made it to Concourse A? Good for you!
Link to post about determining if your flight is going to be delayed is wrong, proper link is https://www.pointswithacrew.com/1-trick-tell-flight-going-delayed.
Thanks – fixed the link!
This doesn’t work anymore. Im alone flying from Orlando to Charlotte on Thanksgiving. Plane leaves around 7:45p. Since I got my invitation from Frontier last night, at 8:36, it already included a seat assignment of 17E. I waited until approximately 3:45p today to check in and was still assigned 17E. Does seat assignment work differently now or did I do something wrong?
No, you did not necessarily do anything wrong. They gave you 17E before you checked in, and you still had what they gave you after you checked in. The only thing you could have done better was either pick a seat before your invitation or try to request a seat change if possible.
This was great!
I have been trying to figure this out also.
I love Frontier $15. And $20. Flts.
We travel alot on Frontier.
I can get seats at same time as my daughter- 24 hrs before and she gets rows 16 and we get row 27!
I dont get it but fun to try and figure it out.
my son flying by himself tomorrow and I checked him today exactly 24 hours before the flight and they assigned him 9D – not bad. As of now the plane is not too full with many rear seats empty so who knows how they decide where you sit
I’m back with another comment on this post over 4 years after my last comment!
If you’re gunning for one of the top seats on the plane, if you’re traveling solo (or don’t care if you and others on your booking are split up), and if you can tolerate the risk of pushing it too far and being denied boarding on an oversold plane, the strategy detailed here seems like one that could work (even if it didn’t work out that way for Dan).
But if you’re just trying to get away from the back of the plane, my limited experience indicates this approach isn’t necessary and may in fact be counterproductive at this point in time. For my flight tomorrow, I checked in sometime within say ½ an hour of check-in window opening and was assigned a seat in the middle of the plane (row 15 of 30) with dozens and dozens of empty seats behind me–and crucially, priced less than my seat would have been: my seat is directly in front of several rows where they are charging $21 for aisle and window seats, indicating this is at least how much my aisle seat would have been sold for, yet there are about a dozen rows farther back on the plane where the aisle and window seats are priced at $17. So not only did they not place me nearly as far back as they could have, they didn’t even place me into a seat for which they would otherwise charge the lowest possible price. Now, I didn’t get an exit row seat, but my point is that I’m nowhere near the back of the plane. As to my earlier mention that delaying check in may be counterproductive: the vast majority of the seats available on this plane are behind mine and if this flight is anywhere near full, that means that people checking in after me are the ones who are going to be sitting there, meaning delaying check in here results not in sitting farther forward in the plane but in sitting farther back in the plane.
Also, it’s worth noting that they gave my wife and I seats together. As they say, your mileage may vary, but if you’re booked together with others and wish to sit together, I recommend an earlier, not a later check in because my experience (again, limited experience) indicates that if the seats together are available they may give them to you. But clearly, if you wait so long to check in that seats together aren’t even available then they obviously can’t give them to you.
Thanks for the update Josh – I agree with what you’re saying. I do also think (after having a few conversations with Frontier) that despite their rhetoric to the contrary, that Frontier’s seating system DOES attempt to seat people on the same reservation together, as long as there are available seats together. So if you’re traveling with a group, I would definitely recommend checking in earlier rather than later