Originally Posted by
harston_boy
Yeah, it's crazy. The cargo guys know that 925 on 7th NOV will be a B777, but the seat map and any similar access (including what UA agents can see) show it as a 77Q. I guarantee that when people check-in, there will be a mad panic by staff at the airport to re-assign seats. It's not just a problem in C/J, it's also bad for Y and Y+ customers, as the old config is 2-5-2 and the new 3-3-3 so there are lots of people who had an aisle seat, who end up with a middle. United really need to fix this issue, or else have someone manually check the cargo site 7 days from departure and change the seat map if necessary!
What happened was, knowing it would be a cock-up, I tried to check-in online a full 23 hours ahead. Didn't want to end up with 2 middle seats! We were unable to check in on dot.bomb, and the seatmap showed pretty much only middle seats left in the C cabin.
So I called 1k line. The agent was able to see our tickets and that the aircraft had been swapped but was unable to put us in any particular seat, saying it was under airport control. So I asked for a supervisor. And got disconnected. Called back, miraculously got the same agent who was very apologetic and put me right through to the supervisor. She checked and checked and it turned out the airport had reassigned our seats but this somehow made it impossible to check in online...had to be done at airport. Problem is, they put us in 11A and B, not middle but still less than desirable seats. And since the rest of the seats had been similarly reassinged there was no option to change.
Lol, no pre-departure drinks and then super-slow service that ate into sleeping time IAD-LHR and then an aircraft swap to the B777 on the return. As my fiancee said, it's really our own fault. Only fools and government contractors buy Z fares on UA metal!
Ineresting thought on the upgrade. I'll go ask at the transfer desk!