America West FlightFund (Discontinued Program) - "Checked in Full"

So here's the skinny. On wed I was booked on flight 5 which was cxld due to weather. Like I said in my previous post I immediately booked myself on flight 1 the next morning. I had to ask of course there on the phone if there happened to be any F availability, "no, we're full". Okay, fair enough and understood. At the gate Thursday morning about 40 mins prior to departure for the hell of it I inquired again at the gate: "sorry sir, F has checked in full". No bother, I settle for 11 Charlie, a great seat by any means and more pitch anyhow than their F seats (and BTW, I tried their buy on board for this first time--ham/cheese sandwhich, wheat thins, granola bar, apple sauce all for $5--pretty cheap and not bad tasting at all).

Anyhow, this woman and her (apparent) daughter make their way to sit down across from me in 11 D and E but there was a man in D. They compared boarding passes and sure enough they both had D passes. The woman loudly exclaims "well I booked this ticket over two months ago (oh great, another frequent traveler :rolleyes: ) and can't figure how on earth America West screwed this up!!". Whatever lady, mistakes happen.

So here's where the point of my post comes to light. The f/a comes up to the lady passenger, and says "sorry for the inconvenience miss, we have a first class seat available if you'd like to take it". THEN the lady and her daughter begin to go back and forth with this, loudly: "do you want it", "no, that's okay, you take it", "no you take it", "oh it's okay, I'm serious, YOU take it". O-H M-Y G-O-D :rolleyes:

What does this say about HP saying F checked in full? Shouldn't they have put me (or perhaps any higher qualifying Plats) in that seat first? I didn't say a thing of course. Just curious what your opinions will be. I couldn't but help think of the "upgrade priority" thread while this was happening.

It's my understanding that when there is a seat assignment flub-up, that the GATE AGENT, not the F/A straightens it out. And if there are vacant seats in 1st, they are supposed to come get a plat out of their coach seat to upgrade them.
I saw this happen exactly once, so I'm not sure if its policy, but I have been told by a gate agent, 'We'll come get you since you're first on the upgrade list if any first class seat is still empty".

Anyway, F/A's are not supposed to upgrade anybody.
(But it sounds like you were lucky to not have to sit by those tourists!)

What does this say about HP saying F checked in full? Shouldn't they have put me (or perhaps any higher qualifying Plats) in that seat first? I didn't say a thing of course. Just curious what your opinions will be. I couldn't but help think of the "upgrade priority" thread while this was happening.

What it says, in my view, is that HP is wildly inconsistent when it comes to the application of these rules and processes. I've seen it handled so many different ways -- just in the past year. In fact, it seems to happen more often than it used to.

I understand that "checked in full" means that everyone has checked in for the flight. That doesn't mean that they're at the airport and ready to board that flight. They could have checked in on-line and not made it to the airport and flight for whatever reason. They could be on a late arriving aircraft and not going to make their connection. They could be sitting in the bar, like so many of the WN passengers seem to do on the Bravo show Airline. :rolleyes: There are any number of possibilities. In my experience, quite often something happens to one or more of them and there ends up being a seat open after all. It's how the gate agent handles it when that happens that is, unfortunately, all over the map.

I don't know how many times I've been sitting on the aisle a row or two behind the great divide and watched non-rev employees (in uniform, which is how I know) get seated in F. That's incredibly frustrating.

I've also been on a couple of flights lately (actually sitting in First, though) where one or more seats are left open and they just close the door and leave. In one case, a man was watching from the back and I heard him tell the flight attendent that he was waiting for an open seat to be upgraded and she told him, no doubt following the rules, that she could not do anything about it and after a brief little conversation essentially told him to stay in his seat that we'd be flying with it empty.

There are no doubt a lot of pressures on the gate agents to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time to get a flight off on time. I just don't think that, as a group, they recognize the importance of this issue to their most frequent customers. Deviations from the policy are just way too common.

What it says, in my view, is that HP is wildly inconsistent when it comes to the application of these rules and processes. I've seen it handled so many different ways -- just in the past year. In fact, it seems to happen more often than it used to.

It's how the gate agent handles it when that happens that is, unfortunately, all over the map.

I don't know how many times I've been sitting on the aisle a row or two behind the great divide and watched non-rev employees (in uniform, which is how I know) get seated in F. That's incredibly frustrating.

I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times this has happened especially on the shorter flights and especially when the flight is late and they are just trying to get it out. Call it laziness on part of the employees that they don't follow their own rules. Yes, I believe that is the case. It's a breath of fresh air when CO tells you again and again how happy they are to have you as a customer when you board, believe it or not, follow their rules on priority, and totally realize the importance of their best elite customers. When an airline has to compete with WN, this gets lost over at HP. If they want me to come back, they are going to to more than clean up this act.

Seeing non revs getting upgraded b4 elites used to be a common occurance at HP when I was flying them more. And some of these non-revs are buddies of employees and aren't even dressed up! I see it happen a little bit on CO in BF for their International Flights. They have that 72 hour window they use to keep pax from reserving BF seats under bogus reservations just to insure open seats for them when they fly. They solved that problem with their 72 hour rule. This has made a boon to their employees' chances flying non-rev in BF on these International flights.

If HP cared more about their most important customers, they would follow the rules they themselves have set up and keep us loyal. Loyalty has gone out with some of the airlines and certainly has with America West. It's a shame.

We had something similar happen on a couple of my flights this week. On flight 397 LAS-DFW I was in 1B and 1A was open. The GA came down (we were running late) and said you can move someone up if you want. The FA asked if there were any elites that could be bumped and she said no, just pick someone if you want. So the non F attendant asked the F attendant if she should and she just said pick someone nice. I told them there was a hot blonde back there that was travelling alone..you were welcome to pick her ^ but she ended up picking some business dressed guy to come up. She based it on his nice dress and his tie evidently. So I thought they followed the policy well there from how I understand it and even went beyond cuz they could have flown it empty.

On the DFW-LAS return flight we flew with 2 empty F seats. I overheard there were no more elites to upgrade and they didn't bump anyone up out of courtesy. Seemed ok to me...but it was up to the FAs not the GA on this flight.

Then on the LAS-PHX flight we ended up with 1B open (I was in 1D). We took off with it empty and again I thought gee, I barely got an upgrade, what is up with that? Then after the 10K foot ding or whatever this guy gets up and of course the FAs are all telling him to sit back down. Evidently he was a gold that didn't get bumped and he was coming up to sit in his F seat that he should have been bumped to. Now this flight actually left a little early but I don't know why they didn't bump the guy up to begin with. He was first in line too as it turned out. I figured he already asked and was told he would be called up but never was and thought he would just call himself up. So I don't think they followed the policy here or forgot about it.

So there really isn't any rhyme or reason behind it. All I know is you kinda need to look out for number 1 and make sure people know you are elite and want the upgrade and keep reminding them. :)

Lance

[QUOTE=AZ Travels the World]They could be sitting in the bar, like so many of the WN passengers seem to do on the Bravo show Airline. :rolleyes: QUOTE]

A&E not Bravo

on hp530 phx-las, i was told the same, that F was full. due to a misconnect, two seats went open, i had a book open on my tray as the F f/a came through with bev, and she commented, we were looking for you to move you up, but I missed it. well, i thought, i have been here the whole time, in 4a, havent gone anywhere, so how could they miss me. she then let me move up, but that was half way into the flight

What it says, in my view, is that HP is wildly inconsistent when it comes to the application of these rules and processes. I've seen it handled so many different ways -- just in the past year.


So have I. But I've seen it just as often on other carriers.

I think the truth is that when they're about to close the door, all the printed rules go out the window. And that's why GA's are the ones with the authority -- they need that authority to fix glitches so the plane can get pushed. I think that's also why carriers don't want us looking too closely at the nits and picks of upgrade rules -- they don't have time to take each decision to the Supreme Court.

I don't think you can expect them to be 100% fair. The question is, how seriously do they take the upgrade process and how hard they try to follow the rules when they can.

I always make it a point to ask the GA to remember me if there is a no-show in F. I've been pretty lucky with upgrades but a smile can sometimes go a long way.