As airlines charge for better seats, families who want to sit together might get a break

Almost every time you make an airline reservation, once you settle on a fare you agree to pay, comes the real challenge: choosing a seat.

Twenty years ago, the choices were relatively simple and uncomplicated. If you were flying economy, you could choose window or aisle, or if you booked early enough, an exit row seat. If families wanted to fly together, they could choose a whole row in the center of a wide-body aircraft.

But then, as airlines added more seats to their airplanes, they also looked to maximize additional revenue, and most airlines then assigned additional prices to those coach seats. And thus began the upsell of the airline seat.