If you've been cramped in an economy class middle seat in the middle row of five seats across on a trans-Atlantic flight you know how miserable the flight can be.

Selecting the best airplane seat available can make all the difference between a good and a terrible experience.

Where you sit on the plane matters even on short flights because you may be stuck in a bad seat waiting to take off for quite some time.

It's amazing to me how often travelers say they simply don't know how to choose a good seat or, if they do, they don't bother with it.

Here's how to use the strategies frequent flyers use. If you follow these steps you'll find good seats some of the time and get out of accepting bad seats most of the time.

Book Early

When you buy an airline ticket, you'll get an assigned seat if you don't choose your own. However, on some itineraries with more than one flight, you may not be assigned a seat on subsequent flights until you check in with a ticketing agent.

As soon as you make your reservation, book your seat. Keep in mind the further out you book from your departure, the better your seat selection usually will be.

Use Seating Maps

You may have never used an airline's seating map -- similar to the layout of cruise ship cabins that are usually shown in a cruise line's brochure -- you'll probably do so the next time you get automatically stuck in last row of the plane.