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This Is The Best Time To Check In To Your Flight To Get The Best Seat Possible

This Is The Best Time To Check In To Your Flight To Get The Best Seat Possible

When you’re a budget traveler, scoring a coveted seat without having to pay extra fees is possible — but it might take strategic timing. If you’ve already chosen your seat when you purchased your tickets, you’re at an advantage. But many airlines don’t allow passengers in the most basic economy option to do so, and that’s when check-in time can make all the difference. That’s because during check-in, airlines assign seating to people who haven’t already paid for it — which means the time of day you check in can mean the difference between getting assigned a relaxing seat by the window or a middle seat wedged between two people in the last row by the bathroom. If this is you, don’t dilly-dally when you get an email about checking into your flight. “l aways say right at the 24-hour mark, if possible,” Fora travel adviser Amna Ismail said. “Set an alarm, as silly as that sounds, and do it, especially if you’re flying economy.” The Case For Checking In Early A bad or great seat assignment can be determined by the time you decide to check in. Many airlines will allow passengers to check in 24 hours before they depart for a flight, and doing this immediately can increase your chances of getting assigned the preferred seats in the location you want –– without having to pay extra to guarantee it. When people check in last-minute, “oftentimes, if it’s a full flight, especially around holidays or really busy periods, we find that you might get left with a seat toward the back, or a dreaded middle seat, which people hate,” said Katy Nastro , a travel expert and spokesperson for Going, a company that tracks airfare deals. At the same time, even checking in as early as you can is not always a guarantee, because there are other factors that could determine how many window or aisle seat assignments are left by check-in time. The leftover seating assignments “vary so much by routing and the time of year, like where you’re going. ... Like Wednesday afternoon going from Las Vegas to somewhere, your likelihood of getting a window seat or an aisle seat is better than on a Friday evening,” Ismail said. If you’re flying to a city where many people have loyalty status for an airline — like San Francisco and United Airlines, for example — then people with loyalty status will be more likely to get that coveted upgrade to a better seat, no matter how early you check in, Ismail added. If you do have loyalty status with an airline, it also helps to check in early because it will place you higher on the potential upgrade list. “Airlines really want to try to sell those seats to begin with, so they’re going to wait until the final hour to even offer up any upgrades,” Nastro said. “So if you want to try to maximise your chances at getting an upgrade, you want to check in as early as possible.“ There are instances where you can check in at the airport and still get a favourable seat, but this is risky for other reasons. Checking in later might score you a better seat, travel experts said, but it also increases your chances of getting bumped to a later flight and denied boarding to the flight you wanted to take. That’s because airlines are allowed to oversell flights within reason to compensate for “no-shows.” When airlines are deciding who should be bumped to the next flight because of an oversold flight, “sometimes they’ll default to whoever’s checked in last,” Nastro said. Other Ways To Score A Better Seat For Free After you check in early, don’t give up if you only see seats in the last row. “People should definitely check in early, but keep checking this map if you are trying to get a better seat,” Nastro said. That’s because seat options can open up as people change their travel plans, and “you can play seat musical chairs.” “I’ve had that happen where a better window seat opened up, so I was able to move a couple rows up and sit in a window versus an aisle,” Nastro said as an example. Also, you can go offline and try simply asking a gate agent if there is any other seating option available once you have checked into your flight. Airlines sometimes oversell tickets, or people might not show up for the flight they bought. This is why it helps to ask for what you want when you go up to the ticket counter of your flight before boarding starts. Take it from Ismail, who used this strategy herself when she bought a flight that initially only had middle seat assignments left. By asking a gate agent if there were other seat options, Ismail was able to get moved to a window seat, which Ismail preferred. “It was a United Premium Economy [seat] ... and they didn’t charge,” Ismail recalled. “Being nice and being courteous goes a long way.” Related... 9 Myths About Flight Attendants That Are 'Just Plain Insulting' 9 Destinations Travel Influencers Return To Again And Again The 1 Potentially Deadly Mistake People Make During An Emergency Landing, According To Flight Attendants

Reality TV Fandom Has Reached Peak Toxicity. Stan Culture Is A Big Reason Why.

Reality TV Fandom Has Reached Peak Toxicity. Stan Culture Is A Big Reason Why.

Huda Mustafa at the Season 7 reunion of Love Island USA Reality shows , like almost all television programming, have always thrived on attention currency: the idea that our viewing habits can be commodified into a measure of what’s hot, popular and worthy of our precious time. At reality TV’s genesis, that looked like network ratings from millions of viewers tuning in for appointment television week after week for, in most cases, the juicy drama they couldn’t get enough of. Nowadays, though, those ratings are more contingent upon on-screen drama sparking discussions, and not just in our homes, group chats or at the office watercooler. Instead, conversations have shifted to places like social media, which are designed to fuel TV gossip discourse (the good and the bad) for a much wider, more engaged and, dare I say, obsessed audience. It’s for that reason that many who aren’t avid reality TV watchers may have found their social media timelines hijacked this summer by the annual fixation of Love Island USA. A hit spinoff of the long-running UK original, Love Island USA has become the most-talked-about reality series in recent memory across the pond, largely due to the unprecedented success of season six’s breakout cast — whom fans have followed religiously online and in real life since last summer, and even now on their spin-off, Love Island: Beyond The Villa . But the same can be said of the show’s record-breaking seventh season, which has been the subject of just as much, if not more , internet chatter this summer. With fan-favourite couples like Nicolandria (Nic Vansteenberghe and Olandria Carthen) and Chellace (Chelley Bissainthe and Ace Greene) gaining devoted followings and sparking their own cultural waves — alongside an increasingly star-studded viewership – Love Island USA has solidified its place as a full-blown reality TV obsession. But amid all that passion, something shifted between seasons six and seven that took the Love Island USA fandom into toxic territory, so much so that the show itself had to intervene. Olandria Carthen, Amaya Espinal, Chris Seeley, Iris Kendall and Nic Vansteenberghe during a Season 7 challenge. Ahead of one episode that aired in late June, the US series issued a “friendly reminder” to viewers amid growing negative discourse online about some contestants. “We appreciate the fans, the passion for the series, and the amazing group of Islanders who are sharing their summer with us,” read the statement . “Please just remember they’re real people – so let’s be kind and spread the love!” On an episode of Aftersun, Love Island USA’s companion talk show, host Ariana Madix also made a statement to fans, saying directly: “Don’t be contacting people’s families. Don’t be doxxing people. Don’t be going on Islander’s pages and saying rude things.” This isn’t the first time Love Island USA has called out such behaviour from viewers. A similar statement was made last year ahead of the season six reunion , which noted: “While we love your passion for [the Love Island USA cast], we ask that you always choose to be kind.” Still, this summer saw viewer conduct reach new lows, with online harassment escalating to rather parasocial levels due to fanbase wars and a hypersurveillance of Islanders once they exited the villa – the latter often taking place in dedicated fan communities that constantly repost Islanders’ day-to-day activities, both on and offline. In the most extreme cases this season, fans’ toxic behaviour turned into outright racism toward Carthen and Bissainthe, the only two dark-skinned Black women of the main cast. The two addressed the harsh backlash they received last month on the Baby, This Is Keke Palmer podcast , where they told the host that they felt they needed to “tone down” in the villa to avoid being vilified. Yet, it happened anyway. During this week’s reunion special, Carthen brought up the matter again when she expressed how hurt she felt that fellow castmate and former friend Huda Mustafa didn’t check her stans over online racism they spewed Carthen’s way, which Carthen said impacted her mentally. “I truly wish you would’ve prioritised that moment to address the racism and the bullying towards me and Chelley since that was spewed out the most,” Carthen said before tearing up. “Your face was not plastered on fucking George Floyd’s body. Mine was, and I told you that. It was that bad.” In these cases, it doesn’t help that platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and TikTok egg on this extremist behaviour by giving fans direct access to the people they watch nearly every day of the week. But Uttara Ananthakrishnan, assistant professor of information systems at Carnegie Mellon University, told HuffPost this is a result of social media and reality TV working in tandem to increase engagement, rather than addressing what’s most concerning. Clarke Carraway, Jaden Duggar, Olandria Carthen, Gracyn Blackmore, Huda Mustafa, Chelley Bissainthe and Iris Kendall during an elimination ceremony. It’s a two-fold problem, the professor said, that begins with reality TV offering a voyeuristic glimpse into the everyday lives of show contestants, which are technically scripted for entertainment. The juiciest storylines are decided by producers, who then package them into moments designed to spark the most engagement on social media. “You create this environment where you want [these moments] to go off the TV platform and go into all these other channels where your primary engagement is going to come from,” Ananthakrishnan said. “And the more divisive your main show or your main plot is, the higher the buzz that it creates on a different platform.” “So, it’s sort of engineered to provoke reactions on what is already a very volatile channel in itself,” she added, “which is social media”. Essentially, it’s a feedback loop fuelled by algorithms that reward outrage by amplifying the most polarsing content. And with groups of passionate viewers pledging their allegiance to their favourites, online commentary has become less about the show itself and more about defending their chosen side, whether they’re right or wrong. That would explain why some viewer responses often feel so personal – and so extreme – even when directed at contestants they’ve never met. But as Ananthakrishnan pointed out, there’s more at play than just emotional projection. There’s also the fact that reality shows are structured in a way to give audiences a “mirage of authenticity”, the professor noted, where the degrees of separation are intentionally collapsed to make them feel like they genuinely know the contestants on a personal level. “Most of the time, the stars of these reality shows go on to these [social media] platforms and interact with their audience as the person that they are portrayed to be on [TV],” the professor added, “which then leads to this perceived authenticity of these characters or the way that this bond has been created.” That’s one side of it. But in the case of Love Island USA, those blurred lines of reality can also be attributed to the fact that the show gave fans more voting power this past season to decide contestants’ romantic fates. That in itself makes viewers act more entitled because they’re actually invested in the on-screen drama, not as spectators, but as active participants. And this is where parasocial relationships come into play – this one-sided connection between fans and the person they supported all season long. In pop culture terms, we call those folks “stans” – derived from Eminem’s 2000 song Stan – who glorify and defend their faves to no end, to the point where any negative comment, or even the slightest critique, is met with immediate vitriol. These relationships, of course, aren’t exclusive to reality TV. In today’s era, stan culture primarily exists in the celebrity and entertainment realms (think of Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift and Cardi B’s fanbases, for instance). However, the side of the spectrum devoted to reality TV fandom is just as powerful, in part, because contestants who appear on shows like Love Island USA are much more accessible. “You’re seeing them in a much more immersive way than when you watch a sitcom that is scripted and has this artificialness to it that we don’t see in the same way,” said Maureen Coyle, assistant professor of psychology at Widener University, who also pointed to social media as a factor. “It blurs that line between this person I know in real life and this person I see across the screen,” she added. “And we treat them as fundamentally the same in our own psyche.” Love Island USA contestants Clarke Carraway, Nic Vansteenberghe, Cierra Ortega, Taylor Williams, Pepe Garcia-Gonzalez and Ace Greene. That’s sort of what reality shows are counting on from their viewers. Despite its name, reality TV, as many know, often fails to paint a full, raw picture of what’s actually happening in real life, since the ultimate goal is to entertain. Hence, you usually hear stars complaining about receiving unfair edits, which sometimes fuel false narratives about them. But it’s hard for viewers to keep that in mind when a show like Love Island, which is filmed and aired in real time, feels like it’s capturing everything we think is happening IRL. “There’s a false sense that [people are] truly seeing the whole of a complex person and that what you’re seeing on the reality show is all of that person’s dynamics,” said Tracy King, a clinical psychologist with expertise in online behaviour. “I don’t think people like to think that it’s just a screenshot,” she added. “They like to think that that’s what’s there, and they’re getting that insight into [what they’re seeing], so they then feel they have the right to comment on it, too.” That explains why some Love Island USA fans have become especially hostile toward cast members online lately, spawning communities where negativity only grows as more people join in, some under anonymity. As King noted, this groupthink behaviour only amplifies users’ worst impulses to say the most hurtful things to and about contestants. “[Viewers] are not really understanding that what they’re saying is harmful,” King said of fan comments. “They’re just reacting rather than responding to what they see, and because it’s online, they don’t see that it has an impact.” Olandria Carthen and Nic Vansteenberghe at the reunion of Love Island USA. That’s a critique many Love Island USA cast members voiced this past season, especially as fan backlash escalated into vicious cyberbullying, including attacks on contestants’ appearances and behaviour . For viewers, t hat should serve as a stark reminder of just how deeply online hate can cut, especially when it crosses the line from criticism to straight-up dehumanisation. It’s unsettling to see just how toxic fan behaviour has become lately. Still, again, both King and Coyle trace it back to how parasocial relationships can often distort boundaries to the point that viewers feel justified in attacking contestants who go against their favs or trigger something within themselves that they think is under attack. “That is why people could get pushed to saying and doing these more dangerous, aggressive things,” Coyle said. “They’re seeing it as an attack on their belief system.” But that’s why the professor says it takes more self-awareness from viewers to decide what does and doesn’t warrant a reaction online, and when it’s time to take a step back from our devices. “Or as Gen Z says, touch grass,” she added. Chelley Bissainthe and Ace Greene seated at reunion of Love Island USA. It may take time for that mindset to catch on again. These days, online culture thrives on instant reactions, and reality TV, by design, plays right into that. But with Love Island USA now behind us (at least until next summer), there’s a chance for the chronically online conversations to slow down, finally. Maybe during that time, viewers will reflect on where they went wrong with their commentary this season and course-correct for the future. Or better yet, the show itself will take measures to address the toxicity in a way that won’t feed the algorithm machine — that is, if they care enough to really address the issue. “It’s not an easy problem to solve,” Ananthakrishnan said, adding there’s still a lack of incentives for reality shows to monitor their engagement online. “They want a lot of toxicity and hate because that there is a lot of attention [for them],” she adds. “But the technology absolutely exists now to [filter] what gets put out on the internet.” If social media platforms or reality shows won’t take it upon themselves to set healthier boundaries around fan engagement, then perhaps it’s on viewers to take control instead. “People forget that they do have some control over their algorithms,” Coyle noted. “If we notice that we don’t feel good, that we’re feeling angry or upset, or these toxic dynamics are happening with other people, it could be good to just tell the platform, ‘I want less of this, or I want to pause this for 30 days.’” Like maybe I want to wait until the season’s over before I even engage online with it.” “I know that can be hard to do,” she added. “But things like that, where we try and communicate to the platform that we want less of that content, it won’t take up so much mental space, and then it might be less likely that we’ll have those visceral reactions to things.” MORE TV NEWS: Which Love Is Blind UK Couples Are Still Together? 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This Is What UK Girls Say Puts Them Off Sport At School

This Is What UK Girls Say Puts Them Off Sport At School

Girls are dropping out of sport. This is one of the main barriers. By now we all know how exercise is hugely important for our physical and mental wellbeing – it’s been linked to a lower risk of developing lots of nasty health conditions in later life ( think heart disease, stroke and cancer ), and can boost self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy. Yet too many girls are dropping out of sport at school. According to research by ASICS, 64% of UK girls will drop out of sport before they turn 16, which will not only impact their physical and mental wellbeing today, but also in the long-run. The biggest barrier appears to be what they wear, with 70% of the 14- to 16-year-old girls surveyed saying they would be more likely to participate in school PE lessons if their kit was more comfortable. Almost three-quarters said this factor would mean they’d enjoy PE more, too. The key reasons cited by girls for feeling uncomfortable in their current PE kit are: ‘lack of choice’, ‘uncomfortable fabrics’, ‘shapeless design’, ‘suitability for different weather conditions’, ‘period concerns’ and ‘sweat absorption and visibility’. Nearly two-thirds (63%) believe it’s time for a PE kit makeover to make it more comfortable. Katie Piper, activist and TV personality, said: “As a mum to two daughters, I know the impact PE kits can have on young girls’ willingness to take part in sport. I remember experiencing this first-hand myself at school – feeling uncomfortable in my kit and worrying more about how it looks than enjoying the activity.” She is lending her support to a new Undropped Kit initiative – a reimagined PE kit concept based on what girls actually want to wear to feel more comfortable. The Undropped Kit “It’s about more than just clothing – it’s about helping girls feel seen, supported, and empowered to stay active,” said Piper. “I urge parents and schools to get involved and help create a more inclusive environment for our daughters.” ASICS, together with Inclusive Sportswear and mental health charity Mind, conducted extensive research with teenage girls to reimagine the school PE kit, which has been designed to suit different body shapes, weather conditions and personal styles. It’s already been tested by secondary school girls at Burnley High School – who gave it the thumbs up. Tess Howard, founder of Inclusive Sportswear and international hockey player for Team GB, said: “A PE kit is the most underrated reason girls drop out of PE, but the good news is we can fix it – and fast. She added: “By listening to girls and evolving kit to support their needs, we can lift this barrier.” Hayley Jarvis, from the mental health charity Mind, noted that physical activity is a “powerful protective factor” for young people’s mental health. “It’s deeply concerning to see so many teenage girls dropping out of PE in such big numbers,” she said. “While the reasons are complex, simple changes like adapting PE kit could help girls feel more comfortable to stay active, giving them a lifelong tool to support their mental health.” Clothes aren’t the only reason putting girls off sport. Previous research from Women in Sport found more than one million teenage girls (43%) who once considered themselves ‘sporty’, disengage from sport following primary school. A fear of feeling judged by others (68%), lack of confidence (61%), pressures of schoolwork (47%) and not feeling safe outside (43%) were some of the reasons given. Related... Honestly, Why On Earth Aren't Sports Bras Part Of All Teen Girls' PE Kits?! Urgent Health Warning Issued Ahead Of Kids' Return To School Dear Parents, This Is What Teachers Need You To Know Ahead Of Back To School Week