Congrats – you have your Swiss business class award ticket booked and you are now on the website to select your seat! Except, you see that you will need to pay quite a bit (sometimes over $200) to get the coveted “throne” seat – the business class seat that is centered in its space and with small tables on each side.
How Get the SWISS Business Class “Throne” Seat For Free
Fortunately, you can still get the Swiss business class throne seat for free, but you will need to pay attention to the time!
Check the Seat Map for the SWISS Business Class Throne Seat
First of all, check out the seat map for your flight to see which seats are the throne seats. You can view the seat map on the Swiss site when selecting your seats or over at SeatGuru. The ones you want are the isolated ones showing up in the middle and they are not in the center area of the airplane. If you are really wanting quiet and seclusion, you will want to check for that Swiss throne seat in the “mini” business class cabin right behind first class!
The Key to Free Swiss Business Class Throne Seats is Timing
If you are not a top tier elite member in the Swiss/Lufthansa elite program, it will cost you quite a bit to grab one of these seats ahead of time. The secret to getting the Swiss business class throne seat for free is to select the throne seat at 48 hours before the flight departure.
It is at that 48 hour mark that the seats become available for free selection, which means you will likely not be the only one trying to grab them! If you have an itinerary with a connecting flight to that flight, you still need to try at 48 hours before the flight with the throne seats depart. Trying to grab them 48 hours from your first flight will not work.
Remember that it is 48 hours before the departure time in that time zone (so if you are departing from Eastern Europe, you will need to remember you are likely 1 hour ahead of Switzerland). Set an alarm, if you need to. If it is a full flight, you will be happy you did!
Takeaway
At the end of the day, you are still flying in business class in a lie flat seat! 🙂 So, if you don’t get the Swiss business class throne seat, you will still have a great flight! I have flown in Swiss business a few times and each time with the throne seat so I can totally appreciate the appeal! It is a great seat!
I loved the throne seat in the mini cabin the one time I took it, on an overnight from Nairobi via Dar es Salaam to Zurich. What I didn’t love were the two adults sitting next to it in the middle two seats who TALKED AND FLIRTED THE WHOLE TIME. Who does that on a night flight??? In any event I love Swiss, and their seats that aren’t throne seats but are closer to the window offer lovely privacy as well.
Are you quite sure it’s 48 hours? I recently flew LX in November – and Swiss Reservations informed me it was one 24 hours in advance of departure – when I would have opportunity to do on-line check-in. I asked if the wait time was waived for STAR Alliance Gold (I have UA Global Services) and it was not – it used to be ok years ago.
Throne seats are the best. But, on their new 777-300 products, all the seats have “air cushion” adjustments and both myself and my traveling companions felt the seats to be too hard.
Couples seated in the middle also complained they had to reach far fwd just to see each other.