Would anyone like to weigh in on this situation and let me know what they think.


I spent a very pleasant week in Bonaire with my family last week. On the way down, I flew EWR-BON and received my complimentary EAU upgrade 3 days prior. At check-in I requested that my daughter be given a companion upgrade. Fine, no problem, got the upgrade without a bat of an eyelid.

On the way back, we were booked BON-IAH-EWR. I thought I would try to do same day standby to get on the earlier direct flight. Ha! Ha! This is when the "island time" mentality kicked in.

First, I asked the check-in agent whether we could switch to the earlier flight and pay the same day standby fee. He looked at me like I was from outer space and asked if I had a reservation on the earlier flight! I said , no, but I'd like to switch to it. Again, a confused look, he scurried over to the other check-in agent, huddled together, came back and said he had no authorization to be able to do that.

So, I figured I'd call the Elite line and ask them to do it. Ha! Forget that! Of the four cell phones we had, none of them could get a signal at the airport. All of this took from 4am to 5am and at precisely 5am, the check in agent shouted that the flight was closed and no more people could check in!!

OK, so that scuppered our chances of the switch. We resigned ourselves to the connecting flight.

I stood in line to check in (again!), and was first in line at the Business Class/Elite counter. I stood there for 25 minutes. Noone came to the counter. 3 check-in agents were checking in economy passengers and completely ignoring me and my family in the Elite Access lane.

After 25 minutes, I walked over to the "supervisor" (I knew she was the supervisor because my initial check-in guy had pointed her out to me), and asked, very politely, mind you, if anyone would be attending to the business class line. Another look of astonishment! She told me to bring my bags to her counter and she would check me in there. Which she did.

I asked for my daughter to be placed on the upgrade standby list as my companion. After much explanation about how Gold and Plat elites can upgrade a companion on a space available basis, she agreed to add her to the list. She advised me to check with the gate agent once I got to the gate to get a seat assignment.

I did just that! It was the same guy who had originally told me he had no authorisation to do a same day standby. Only, this time, he told me he had no authorisation to do a companion upgrade. I explalined the rules to him, and told him that the supervisor had told me to get the seat assignment from him. He scuttled off to speak to the supervisor. He was gone 30 minutes! He came back, with a new boarding pass in his hand but did not hand it to me, just said he had spoken to the supervisor, and to meet him at the gate.

When boarding was called, I walked up, asked for my daugher's upgrade! Yes, you've guessed. "I have no authorisation to change the system, I can't give you a new boarding pass, I'll come on board and tell the FA to move her".

We boarded the flight. The door closed. No companion upgrade.


There were 8 open FC seats, 1 blocked for crew rest.

Here's the interesting part.

I sat in my assigned seat - 1F. A little later, a young girl boarded and sat down. I noticed her boarding pass had been manually changed (i.e. written on) to show a change from 6B to 1E. I asked her if she had been upgraded at the gate, and she became a little coy and said her boyfriend worked for CO. I also noticed that her boarding pass showed a name different from the one on her passport (I noticed this as she filled out the Customs declaration).

My guess is that the boyfriend had been offered an employee upgrade and he chose to let her sit in the seat instead. This is only a guess, I have no proof.

Naturally, I was a little annoyed that I didn't get the companion upgrade given that there were 7 clearly open seats. (My daughter was none too pleased either, as I had given the upgrade on the way down to her little sister - and promised her the one on the return!!! Bad mommy!!)



So, what to do? Should I complain to CO? Or just let it go?