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I was looking at some VivaAerobús flight ticket and read that one may check in up to ten days prior to the flight departure:

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(And the seat can be chosen when purchasing the ticket: "free regular seat selection" in the screenshot).

What's the point of checking-in several days before a flight?

Closevoters: the ability to check in early is part of the more expensive flight ticket option, therefore I wonder whether there exists some objective reason to check in early. It's not an opinion-based question.

Franck Dernoncourt
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4 Answers4

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One big one: Many airlines use time of check in as a tie-breaker when it comes to issuing upgrades or clearing stand by lists.

Source: worked at an airline, and quora.

Mark Mayo
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Perhaps not really of benefit to the smartphone generation, but being able to check in 10 days in advance may allow many customers to check in for both outward and return flights at the same time. One then doesn't need to worry about getting internet access, printing boarding passes etc while away from home. For travellers of a certain age and disposition this may be a worthwhile benefit.

Edited to add: In this particular case, the 'cheaper' alternative is online checkin opening 4 or 8 hours in advance of departure. This is inconveniently short, particularly for morning flights or (thanks @GiacomoCatenazzi) if passengers are already in transit.

avid
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Airlines regularly oversell their capacity (i.e. issue more tickets than the can carry passengers). This is economically sensible because statistically there are several no shows per flight. But in the nature of statistics, sometimes more people turn up than they have seats for (in which case you won't be able to select a seat at check-in). In the US in particular, you will see the gate staff offering money in order to move to a later flight when this happens. But sometimes people are selected who do not volunteer. On many airlines, if you have checked in and have already been assigned a seat, you are safe (or safer) from this process. So this is a way to reduce the risk of being bumped.

Also, on many airlines you can select a seat at check-in, and therefore the earlier you do it, the better choice of seats you get.

abligh
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For me it's good because I can check-in while I'm thinking about it.

It's just a bit more convenient and gets it out of the way.

niico
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