'Better off between two strangers': When paying for extra leg room isn't worth it

OPINION: On a recent nine-hour flight, I paid an extra $200 to secure a seat with extra legroom.

As I was travelling with a baby, I thought it'd give us a bit more room to stretch out and hopefully get some rest on our overnight flight.

But in the end, I would have been better off sitting somewhere less desirable- even one of those dreaded middle seats between two strangers.

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Many fliers think it's worth splashing your cash for a seat with a bit more room, whether it's in an exit row or at the plane's bulkhead row.

As a tall girlie, I usually feel squashed into regular economy seats, and my six-foot partner feels the same.

Plus, as anyone who has flown with children knows, you need to get up and down a lot, whether it's to rock a yelling baby or retrieve extra snacks/toys/nappies.

So it made sense for us to drop that $200 for bulkhead seats - situated in the first row of the cabin, with about double the amount of legroom.

But as soon as we sat down, I realised that maybe this wasn't as good an idea as we'd hoped.

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First of all, the armrests in these seats didn't go up and down - which is annoying when you're trying to hold a baby and get him to try and sleep for most of the flight.

On other flights, we'd always been able to raise the armrests and lay him down on a seat between us, or across our laps.

Even without a kid, this could get irritating if you're travelling with a partner and want a little extra space.

The second issue came just after the seatbelt sign turned off. Our seats were right next to both the bathroom and the galley.

So for the whole flight, we had people standing right next to our seats waiting for their chance to use the loo. Cabin crew frequently came in and out of the galley, where the lights remained on even when the rest of the plane was in darkness.

At one point, a crew member opened the 'crew only' storage compartment above us and spilled half a bottle of water all over my partner.

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Another annoying thing about being right at the front of the plane is that it seems everyone is staring straight at you from their seats.

So when I stood up to rock my son to keep him sleeping, hundreds of eyes were trained on me, almost as if they were daring him to wake up and disturb the peace.

(Yes, I'm probably being dramatic, but it was like 3am at this point, so don't hold it against me.)

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How to know if seats are good before you upgrade

Don't do what I did, and just assume that paying extra means the seat is better for your needs.

You can use the site SeatMaps to see what your options are - just plug in your info, then you'll be shown a seat map. You can see little reviews for the seat, the pros and cons to consider, and where it is on the plane.

It's not foolproof, but it's a good way to get some extra info before you fork over the cash.

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When is it worth paying to choose a plane seat?

Most of us can tolerate 'bad' seats (read: middle, next to the bathroom) on short flights that are a couple of hours long.

Its when flights nudge up into that six-plus hours zone that it might be worth paying to upgrade your seat.

If you're on a heavily-trafficked route, like Sydney to Singapore, you're less likely to end up on a half-full plane, where you could score an empty seat next to you for free. In this case, if you want extra comfort, it's worth paying ahead of time.

Travelling on a more obscure route, however, means you could luck out and you're better off leaving it to chance.

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