jmhayes

Yesterday afternoon I was to fly OMA-DEN-OAK. Upgrades cleared weeks ago. I checked in and printed boarding passes in the morning. Got to the airport to find that the incoming plane was going to be late, making OMA-DEN leg late, causing misconnect. Got email from United saying they had reaccomodated me for 24 hours later. Southwest flight leaving for DEN next gate over at same time, $134 fare, yum-yum. Standing in line, called United and explained: asked to be put back on the DEN-OAK segment, was told "all is well" ... stayed in line to ask gate agent in OMA to "double check" -- she said "it looks okay, but they can't check you in over the phone; I can check you in, here's your new boarding pass" ... I think: what a genius I am for double-checking. Fly to Denver uneventfully. Changing terminals, I get another mail from United saying I've been reaccomodated for 24 hours later. I get to the DEN-OAK gate and ask: am I on this flight? Agent says: no, you're on tomorrow's flight. I explain, and she again reboards me onto the flight and hands over an economy boarding pass. Clearly, when they unboarded me the 2nd time it was close enough to the gate window and they upgraded someone in my place. F was now "checked in full" ... no problem, I say: just find the person who improperly got my upgrade and downgrade them. Agent says: I don't have the power to do that. (Can someone confirm or deny?) I asked her to call someone who could, which she did. Then she started boarding. Supervisor showed up, took my info and story, and agreed: the right thing is to downgrade whoever upgraded last. She went off to do it, clearly not wanting to: it's happened to me before, sitting in your seat, maybe even enjoying a drink, and getting yanked back to coach is yucky. But: fair is fair. Somehow I got 1C instead of 2D (which I picked when the cabin was empty), so: no storage and no window, but I'm not terribly unhappy.

However: I think that the gate agent just didn't want to have to be the one to tell the improperly upgraded person that they had to downgrade. It would have been a lot easier to do it before boarding started -- not just for the customer, but also for the supervisor who ultimately had to do it. However: she was working the flight alone, and I suspect that she was worried that if the other customer put up a fuss that she'd be late in boarding the plane. She was visibly unhappy at the prospect, even though she seemed to agree all along that it was the right thing to do.