Originally Posted by cactus_flyer

I'm a US Silver and traveled on a first-class ticket from Europe back to the US, with two carry on-bags - a laptop bag and a carry-on size bag. In Frankfurt, I bought some duty free items. They gave me a separate bag. Everything fine on the transatlantic LH in F, no problem having the duty free bag in addition to the regular carry on pieces. Same in DEN upon going through security.

Upon boarding at the Gate, gate agent (claims to be a supervisor) tells me I'll either have to consolidate my bags or check one in or "I couldn't fly". My regular two carry on's contained items I never check. I tried to consolidate, but it didn't work.

So he requires me to buy an additional seat. He starts out with close to $1k, but his more friendly gate agent associate agrees to sell me an Economy ticket and upgrade it to First Class on my Silver status. Flight was maybe 1/2 full.

Has anybody every experienced anything like this?

During boarding I saw two more passengers having more than two carry-on pieces (plastic bags in addition to their regular bag), but they walked on the plane fine. They were both non-status passengers in Y.