He might be correct.

I don’t think it’s necessary to flip or rotate mattresses any more. Actually, we have never flipped or rotated a mattress. We’re not little people and on our 3rd bed in 50 years.

We have a king with the quilting on just one side but it is not a pillow top. It's not flippable but we do rotate it every few months. There are no handles and it is definitely a two-person job. DH is 6'4" so his leverage helps a lot.

I'm like the princess and the pea, unfortunately, and always notice when one side of the mattress is more smushed than the other side.

My queen mattress isn't flippable, but I have rotated it many time on my own. My bed has a footboard that's a couple of inches above top of bed level. The hardest part is getting it started over the footboard. Lots of rocking and moving by small increments. Once I get enough purchase from the lift at the end, the rest is relatively easy. It would be MUCH easier with another person.

I haven't seen a flippable mattress in 20+ years. We do rotate ours every few months. Queen size is hard for one person to handle and manageable for 3 people. Our King is 2 twin XL mattresses so a bit easier for one person to manage. I usually rotate when my cleaning lady and her helper are here and the 3 of us manage to get it done.

We have a king Royal-Pedic which has handles. That brand is especially heavy. I can rotate it, but I call a local moving company to flip it once a year.

When I was in my early forties and strong as an ox, I had a queen mattress with no handles. It was a pain to flip. I'd remove all breakables from the room. The reason will become clear. I burrowed between the mattress and box springs until I was on all fours on the box springs. I used the back of my body to wiggle the mattress until it was a bit more that halfway off the side. Then I burrowed out, went to the side of the bed, crawled under the mattress, used my back and legs to lift the mattress to vertical and gave it a good shove to flip it on over. Back to other side where mattress was partially off the bed, burrow and use back of body wiggle the mattress into place.

I have never bought another mattress that doesn't have handles.

My 30-year-old queen non-pillow top doesn't have handles. I'm five feet tall. What I do to flip it is pull it off the foot of the bed, stand it up, let it rest against the wall, then sort of get under it and flip it. Then, I wrestle it back until it is aligned with the bottom of the bed, get under it and push it onto the bed. Then, I move it a little at a time, alternating which side until I have it back to the top of the bed.

Rotating is much easier because I can just pull it down until it clears the side tables, then just move it around, again alternating each side until I get it back into place.

I know the expected life of a mattress is about seven years? However, I always use a waterproof pad and a topper or two, so I have no qualms about continuing to use mine.

I use my son and me and brute force.

Thanks everyone. I did forget to say the new mattress I'm considering is two-sided, so it can be flipped and of course needs to be rotated, without any handles. Which makes absolutely no sense to me.

I think they stopped putting handles on to save money, but also because people would rip them off accidentally once the mattresses weren't constructed as sturdily.

Our old queen mattress has handles but cautions you not to use them for lifting. We flip/rotate it yearly and never have used them for that.

It's easier to grab the corners than the sides anyway - definitely a 2 person job.

Arapaho, I'm not sure why our mattress is not flippable, it is not a pillow top. I think it's just the norm for many of the newer mattresses?????

I have a newish twin mattress that only has one side that's tufted, the other looks like a box spring - so definitely not flippable.