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Hello and welcome to Smart With Points, I'm Jack, and today we're discussing the end of an era in the frequent flyer world. After twenty-four years of service, SeatGuru has officially closed its virtual doors. But before you panic about how you'll ever choose a decent seat again, I've got some good news. There are actually better alternatives out there that we'll be diving into today. So buckle up, make sure your tray table is stowed, and let's get into it.
If you tried visiting SeatGuru on the thirty-first of October twenty twenty-five, you were met with a rather simple message: SeatGuru has closed down, please visit TripAdvisor to plan your next trip. After twenty-four years of helping travellers pick better seats, the pioneering website has officially shut its doors.
For many of us in the miles and points community, this genuinely feels like the end of an era. I remember consulting SeatGuru religiously before every single flight, checking those familiar green, yellow, and red colour codes to avoid the dreaded seats with limited recline or misaligned windows. But truthfully, this closure has been a long time coming, and I'll explain why.
So what actually happened to SeatGuru? Well, the site launched back in October two thousand and one, featuring those colour-coded seat maps showing green for good seats, yellow for be aware, and red for bad seats. The website was acquired by TripAdvisor in two thousand and seven, and that's really where things started to go downhill.
TripAdvisor stopped investing in SeatGuru around the start of the COVID-nineteen pandemic in early two thousand and twenty, with the last seat map update published on the sixteenth of March two thousand and twenty. For over five years, the site just sat there with increasingly outdated information, showing aircraft configurations that no longer existed whilst missing newer layouts entirely.
I'll be completely honest with you, I'd already stopped using SeatGuru ages ago. The last few times I checked it against actual airline seat maps, the information was completely wrong. Singapore Airlines' A-three-eighty configurations, British Airways' refurbished aircraft, Qatar Airways' QSuites rollout, none of it was reflected on SeatGuru. It became more misleading than helpful, which is the worst thing a resource like that can be.
Now, you might be wondering why this actually matters so much. Well, when SeatGuru first launched, passengers weren't charged extra fees for most seat assignments. However, airlines have now started charging passengers for reserving seats of their preference, including aisle or window seats, and even seats towards the front of the cabin labelled as preferred come with a higher price tag.
This makes knowing the actual layout of a plane more important than ever. The last thing you want is to pay thirty pounds for a premium seat only to discover it doesn't recline, has a misaligned window, or sits right next to the galley where crew will be clattering about all night.
And when you're redeeming precious Avios or spending your hard-earned points on business class, you absolutely deserve to know exactly what you're getting. That's where modern alternatives come in, and trust me, they're actually better than SeatGuru ever was.
So let me share our recommended alternatives with you. Rather than mourning SeatGuru's demise, let's focus on the silver lining, because the alternatives available today are genuinely superior.
First up, for live seat maps, we recommend FlightSeatmap.com. This is our top recommendation for anyone booking a flight. FlightSeatmap.com shows you real-time seat availability for your specific flight.
Unlike SeatGuru's static maps, you can see exactly which seats are already taken, which are available, and which are blocked. This is absolutely invaluable when you're trying to snag that perfect empty row in economy or avoid sitting next to someone in business class.
The site covers hundreds of airlines and updates in real-time. Simply enter your flight number, and you'll see the actual seat map for your specific aircraft on your specific date. No more guessing whether the seat map you're looking at matches the plane you'll actually be flying on. It's brilliant.
For detailed aircraft information, I recommend Aerolopa.com. Aerolopa is excellent, with far more realistic seat maps than SeatGuru ever had, though it doesn't have seat-by-seat recommendations like the old green, yellow, and red system.
What Aerolopa does brilliantly is show you the exact layout of different aircraft variants. You can see precise window alignments, galley locations, lavatory positions, and even the exact specifications like seat pitch and width. The visual representations are far more detailed than SeatGuru's ever were.
The only downside is that you'll need to identify your specific aircraft variant yourself by checking the number of rows and comparing it to your airline's published information. It takes a bit more effort, but the accuracy is absolutely worth it.
There are also a couple of honourable mentions worth noting. SeatMaps.com is another solid option that includes colour-coding similar to SeatGuru's original system, along with user reviews and three-hundred-and-sixty-degree photos for some aircraft. It's worth checking if you want that familiar good, bad, average classification.
And don't forget about FlyerTalk forums. They remain an excellent resource for seat-specific advice, particularly for less common aircraft or routes. The community is incredibly knowledgeable and often shares recent first-hand experiences that you simply won't find anywhere else.
Now let me share my personal experience with these tools. Since I stopped trusting SeatGuru a few years ago, I've been using FlightSeatmap.com for nearly every booking. It's genuinely helped me avoid some absolute disasters.
For researching less familiar aircraft, like when I was looking into Gulf Air's seven-eight-seven-nine configuration for my recent Falcon Gold review, Aerolopa was absolutely invaluable. The detailed specifications helped me understand exactly what to expect before I even stepped on board.
So what's the bottom line here? Whilst it's sad to see SeatGuru officially close after serving frequent flyers for nearly a quarter century, the truth is that it had become more of a liability than an asset in recent years. The modern alternatives available today offer better, more accurate, and more useful information.
My advice is simple. Bookmark FlightSeatmap.com for real-time availability checking when you're actually booking seats, and use Aerolopa when you want to research aircraft types and specifications in detail. Between these two tools, you'll have everything SeatGuru used to offer, and honestly, quite a bit more.
And of course, if you're planning award bookings and want to find the best flights to begin with, don't forget to check out our Award Travel Finder tool as well. There's absolutely no point picking the perfect seat if you can't find award availability in the first place.
Have you already switched to using these alternatives? Or are you still mourning SeatGuru's demise? I'd love to hear from you on Instagram about which tools you're finding most useful.
That's all for today's episode of Smart With Points. Thanks so much for listening. If you found this helpful, please do subscribe to the podcast. You can find us on all major platforms, or head over to our website at smartwithpoints.co.uk to subscribe there. Your support really does mean the world to us.
And before you go, here's a quick message about Award Travel Finder. Looking for the best award flights? Use AwardTravelFinder.com to search availability across Qatar Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and more. Try it for free with our link in the shownotes.
Until next time, happy travels and stay smart with those points.