Paying $40 PP to get Iberia seat assignment in advance

Never run into this before-flying out of New York on Iberia to Malaga, Spain and the only way to get a seat assignment before we get to the airport the day of departure is to pay $40 pp up front. Have any of you ever run into that? No way to pull up seat map to see if there are lots of empty seats or not. We want to sit together and have window and aisle(seating has 2 seats-not third seat). Love to hear if anyone else ran into this and have any comments. Hope so. Thank you.

I guess Iberia is following British Airways on this. It used to be that they would not allow you to get seat assignment period, unless you were on business class. The interesting thing is that in the last month my son and my husband flew Iberia from JFK to Madrid on FF tickets (coach) and were able to get seat assignments in advance. Go figure

With many airlines these days you have to pay if you want allocated seats. I haven't travelled on Iberia for many years, but have recently booked a BA flight to Spain from London.

I didn't pay extra for an allocated seat, but will be able to choose a seat 24 hours before departure.

I encourage you to ask this over at flyer talk on the Iberia forum ...sometimes there can be a work-around via a partner airline like Royal Jordanian (& sometimes not). I once was able to book my seats (not on Iberia, but part of the alliance) on a partner airline's website well in advance for free.

Good luck!

Agree that Flyertalk is a good recommendation for Iberia specific advice.

In general though my experience is that on a 2-3-2 plane you will most likely be assigned to the middle seats if you are choosing seats late (which you will be if others pay and/or check in before you)

This is (unfortunately) becoming more and more common, and I suspect you're going to have to pay it to get the seats you want.

Yes very common lately. We have 2 legs on Lufthansa and have to pay $35 each EACH LEG!! I am so upset with this but what can you do. Airlines charge for everything now and there is not much you can do.

It's based on the fare class. If you pay a discounted fare, they charge for seats in advance. If you pay full fare or closer to it, they give you priority to book seats at no cost. It's fair I suppose, but annoying.

I guess Iberia is following British Airways on this. It used to be that they would not allow you to get seat assignment period, unless you were on business class. The interesting thing is that in the last month my son and my husband flew Iberia from JFK to Madrid on FF tickets (coach) and were able to get seat assignments in advance. Go figure

Iberia and British Airways are owned by the same company so this would make sense.

Iberia is not unique with this fee. Air New Zealand (among others) does the same thing with domestic flights.

Hank