Originally Posted by
dsldog400
Twice when I was ticketed by US, I had no seat assignments on UA, and even after finally getting a UA record number, was unable to select any seats at UA online. For two weeks it was a default screen "seat selection unavailable at this time". At check in, still no seat assignment. At the gate, the flight was full with lots of crabby passengers, and with 1 hour until departure, the GA held my boarding pass, and both times I was given the last seat available right before boarding started, and there were still standby passengers hoping to go.
These 2 red-eye flights are popular, and I've always wondered if UA & US had different approaches to assigning seats, or maybe wanted to have a codeshare pax loose their seat first.
With regards to your flights on UA, its quite possible in your situations that you could not select an advance seat assignement or get one at the time of check in since quite possible all seats may have been assigned or maybe only E+ seats were left which US elites don't have access to. It seems based on your description of the gate experience that the flight was sold out/oversold. Also, with UA if you don't have a seat assignment in advance, always try to check in online (even if you can't print your boarding pass at that time) at the 24 mark. On most flights you will find there are seats in E- that are held til time of check in and will be available for assignment at that time. Granted, they are not usually the most desireable seats (except for Row 1 on the CRJ) but they are still seats.