Pick the best seat with SeatGuru

- There's a lot more to booking a flight than just figuring out the best departure and arrival times. Once you've selected the flights that you want to be on, the next step is usually selecting your seats. But as you can see, looking at the map that's provided to you by the airline, all it really tells you is which seats are available and maybe which seats provide a little extra leg room. But not all window and aisle seats are created the same. They can vary greatly depending on the type of flight you're taking. So the next time you're booking a flight, before you choose your seats, open up another browser tab and go to SeatGuru.com. SeatGuru has an enormous database of commercial airplanes that's constantly updated with input from travelers who have really flown on these planes. Just enter the airline name, the date you're traveling, and the flight number. Hit Find and you should see the information for your flight pop up. Click View Map to check out the seat map. So this is where you'll find detailed information on the seats and other characteristics of the plane. You can see the best seats here are highlighted in green. The seats with warnings about their quirks are in yellow. And the seats that are considered the worst or least desirable are in red. For example, you can see the second row of exit seats on this flight are in green because they offer the most leg room and they have AC power so you can keep your devices charged while in flight. The first row of exit seats are all in yellow because even though they offer more leg room, those seats don't recline because of the exit rows behind them. Another example is if you prefer window seats, you should check that your seat actually has a window. Notice that some of these seats here in yellow and some of the seats here in red indicate that there are misaligned or no windows in that row at all. And we can see that none of the seats behind row 21 have any AC power, which you'll definitely want to take into consideration if you're planning on working or watching movies on your laptop, phone, or tablet. Now SeatGuru also notes when there are multiple versions of an aircraft. It always selects the most common version on that route, but if the seat map you're looking at doesn't match up with the airline's website, try selecting one of the other layouts you see here to make sure you get an accurate representation of the flight you'll be taking. And you can see there's a lot more information available here, like the airline's baggage policies, and you'll often also be able to find things like photos that real flyers have taken of those planes. And you'll find information on amenities, like whether the plane has wi-fi. So the next time you're booking a flight, be sure to check out SeatGuru first to get the most comfort and productivity out of your time in the air.