India, Oct. 1 -- A Chennai man has shared how a simple approach helped him get two seat upgrades on his Air India Express flight without paying extra. His experience has prompted others to discuss whether being polite to airline staff can help travellers get better seats.

He started with a regular seat but ended up moving to a better one during his journey. Later, he tried the same approach again at the airport, with an unexpected result.

X user Narayanan Hariharan described his experience in a post, calling it a "free travel hack". He said he had initially been assigned seat 27B on his flight.

"Smiled, used her name, enquired about her day, and politely requested at the check-in counter. Moved to emergency row (14F)," he wrote.

But h...