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Sometimes it pays to be polite.
A first-class passenger was taken aback after an elderly lady offered him $100 to swap seats with her on account of a psychological condition.
“She kept insisting she needed to do something nice for me,” the flyer said while recounting the “weird experience” in a Reddit post taking off online.
The Redditor had reportedly been taking a Delta flight from Boston to Atlanta on February 6 when he noticed an “elderly lady was having a hard time getting her bag in the overhead” so the sky samaritan decided to help her.
When the passenger sat down in first class, he noticed that he was next to her with the senior citizen in 1D and him in 1C — the aisle seat.
That’s when the aged flyer floated the unusual proposition. “She immediately said she’d pay me $100 to swap seats because she feels claustrophobic in the window seats in this particular seat configuration,” they recalled.
Flabbergasted by the proposal, the passenger declined the dough but said he would “gladly switch for free” as long as she wouldn’t be bothered by him needing to get out on occasion.
Nonetheless, the woman insisted she needed to do something kind for him, but he said he “really didn’t care and just told her to pay it forward to someone else.”
The elderly lady eventually relented and the pair reportedly spent the rest of the flight talking about their families, careers and other topics, per the post.
Then, upon arrival at their destination, the grateful lady again attempted to pay her savior a Benjamin, finally prompting him to capitulate.
“I tried to refuse again, but she told me to take it and give it to my kids but to explain to them how being nice to others can lead to something nice in return,” he said. “I eventually relented and took her money, but I probably won’t tell my kids that because then they’ll expect me to pay them anytime they do something nice.”
Redditors praised the original poster for accepting the granny’s token of appreciation.
“Accept the gift — means more to [the] giver than the receiver,” said one, while another wrote, “Yeah, at some point saying no is actually the rude thing to do.”
A third gushed, “Sometimes I feel this way — I would rather compensate someone just to feel ‘right.’ I don’t think you did anything wrong taking the money. She might have felt guilty if you didn’t.”
The original poster observed that his experience difffered from most “seat swapping” stories coming out of the friendly skies.
In another instance of a switcheroo proposal gone awry, a Brazillian flier was publicly shamed by a mom for refusing to switch seats with her crying toddler.
In general, flight experts agree that the decision is ultimately up to the passenger getting asked.
“No one has the obligation to switch their seat, nor explain why they won’t switch,” declared California author and etiquette expert Rosalinda Randall. “And the person making the request has no right to expect, or get angry, when they don’t get their way.”
