CheckinSooner- American Airlines seat polling

How it works - Seat Polling

Besides offering checkin services, checkinsooner.com can continually search for a better seat on an airline with seat assignments. Most travel agents and people buying tickets on airline websites reserve a seat at the time of the purchase - and then they don't think about their seat again until they board the aircraft. That's the wrong way to do it, because even within coach some seats are significantly better than other seats. Sitting in a middle seat or in the back of the aircraft for two or twelve hours is not the way to have a good trip.

To use seat polling, sign into your checkinsooner.com account and select seat polling from the right hand menu. Use the drop down selection to select which airline you will be traveling on along with your first name, last name and record locator. We will also ask you which travel segment you want a better seat for. The form is pre-populated with segments 1-4, convenient for a standard round trip ticket with a connection each way.

We use the data you enter to pull up details about your flight. We get the date and time of your flight, the aircraft type, the departure city and your current assigned seat. We then present you with a seat map for your flight where you can choose what seats you would like for your trip.

You can choose any seat or number of seats - available or not available. If the seat you want is not available now we will keep checking with the airline, right up until departure, to see if it does become available.

To choose your seat, use one of the dropdowns for popular choices, such as window seats, aisle seats, window and aisle seats, or a "green" seat. If none of those are what you want you can make up your own list of most desired seats.


To use seat polling, sign into your checkinsooner.com account and select seat polling from the right hand menu. Use the drop down selection to select which airline you will be traveling on along with your first name, last name and record locator. We will also ask you which travel segment you want a better seat for. The form is pre-populated with segments 1-4, convenient for a standard round trip ticket with a connection each way.


We use the data you enter to pull up details about your flight. We get the date and time of your flight, the aircraft type, the departure city and your current assigned seat. We then present you with a seat map for your flight where you can choose what seats you would like for your trip. You can choose any seat or number of seats - available or not available. If the seat you want is not available now we will keep checking with the airline, right up until departure, to see if it does become available.


To choose your seat, use one of the dropdowns for popular choices, such as window seats, aisle seats, window and aisle seats, or a "green" seat. If none of those are what you want you can make up your own list of most desired seats.

Once the data is entered and confirmed, it is stored on our secure servers in our data center. We then start checking with the airline to see if any of the seats you requested are available. We use the following schedule for checking in with the airline:
Time until departure Frequency of polling

More than 3 days Every 4 hours

Between 24 and 72 hours Every hour

Between 1 hour and 24 hours Every 10 minutes

We check for the availability of seats in the order you enter them in. We stop at the first match we come to. If there are no matches to your requested seats available, we repeat the seat polling request according to the schedule above.


When we do find a match to we switch your seat to the pre-desired seat you chose earlier, email out a confirmation and then terminate seat polling for that segment. Enjoy your better seat!

Time until departure	Frequency of polling
More than 3 days	Every 4 hours
Between 24 and 72 hours	Every hour
Between 1 hour and 24 hours	Every 10 minutes