10 Guerilla Airline Travel Tips for the Geek-Minded Person

hanselman.com

7 points·bdfh42··6 comments

You don't have to go on the plane as soon as they start boarding. Definitely don't line up. You have a reserved seat, you can sit and use the internet for an extra 15 minutes until they make the last call. If you're the last one on the plane, you also won't have to fight with other people to use the overhead compartments.

Which means that on a smaller plane on a full flight, you may have to gate check your bag, leaving you lined up on the gateway when unboarding.

I agree with you -- lining up sucks. What I tend to do is review my seats when I check in electronically, and if there is a decent number of open seats, I can count on the overhead space being available. If there's only a few open seats, it might be worthwhile to line up to avoid gate checking.

Of course, you can always just stash your carry on underneath your seat to alleviate that problem.

These are very good tips. I've flown _a lot_ (so much that I have my frequent flyer status for life on at least one airline) and I think that being pleasant, having phone numbers to hand, knowing schedules, hand luggage only and taking action when things go wrong are all really important. Also, I prefer to check in online and print my boarding pass (that also gives you the opportunity to hack the boarding pass and go through the first class security line).

hack the boarding pass??, that sounds interesting.. could you tell us what do you exactly mean ?

I've talked about this before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=104969

Reply on news.ycombinator.com