Monarch Airlines - a new rip off

[Hackney]

Just went to check in online for our Monarch flights and found that I had to choose seating.
£5.99 per seat or £18.99 if I have legs.

There's no mention of this when you book. And they're quite clear that online check-in is free.
The check-in bit may be free but there is no way to check in without incurring the £36 charges for choosing a seat.

The only consolation is that to check in at the airport doesn't cost anything but we almost certainly won't get good seats and we won't be seated together.

Is it legal / good practice to say something is free when it can't be done without doing something else which you're charged for?

I'll know and avoid Monarch in future.

[Hackney]

You're right, I don't have to pay it.
But I do want to check in online to save myself a few minutes at ridiculous o'clock tomorrow.
Their website says I can check in online for free but then says I have to pay £18....for something they say is free

Maybe rip off isn't the correct phrase, perhaps "lie" covers it better.

[Hackney]

Blown2CV said:

checkin is seat allocation. If you want to allocated your seat in advance, you pay. If you want to do it on the day, you don't. There is no part of checkin that can be done in advance if you aren't allocating seats, so yes maybe saying checkin online is free is a bit misleading, but nowhere does it say you NEED to pay £18.99 for extra legroom seats. I know those are the ones you are on about because I flew monarch a couple of weeks ago. The extra legroom isn't even that extra.

You're right, I didn't need to pay £18 but I would have to pay £6

As an addition to this, on the return flight we checked in at Mallaga airport and were amongst the first there. We had 1 piece of hand luggage each and 1 bag to check in to the hold. On check in we were told that the other bags could be put in the hold at no extra cost. My wife decided to check hers in. Then, when my BIL put his bag on the conveyor belt to be weighed as we'd done on the way out and had done with my hand luggage we were told it was over weight. Even though it weighed less than the hold luggage we'd already checked in. So, we moved a few things into my wife's case and before we knew it his (unlocked) hag was through the back door and on its way to the plane even though he wanted to take it as hand luggage.

Not a big deal, just bizarre. Especially when - according to the scales - the combined weight of my wife's bag and the BIL's bag was lighter after we'd moved things between the two. And we've still no idea why we had to move things in the first place.