Originally Posted by
o mikros
However, having said that, UA technically didn't do anything "wrong" either. If you have status you are allowed to 'UG' a companion to E+ but that companion is technically supposed to be on a paid itin. No, I cannot quote the rule. Nor can I provide the website that shows this to be the case. I am speaking based on experience talking with many people and reading many threads on this forum. If your companion (in this case your child) is on an award ticket, he or she is not entitled to free E+. It seems that the agent noticed this and decided to move the kids back to E-. I would further hazard a guess that since they are (presumably) not able to sit by themselves, you were moved back too.
This is a really interesting perspective! I'm not sure I have ever seen anything like "award tickets cannot receive an E+ companion seat assignment when traveling with an elite member", but I don't have any personal experience here . All I have to go on are united.com, the old and possibly unreliable S*UAL/ECONOMY PLUS profile, and then FlyerTalk stuff like a thread where
WineCountryUA believes you can guest one fellow traveler even if you, they, or both are on an award ticket (
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...edemption.html), or a thread where UA employee
IslandSkies mentions that 1K members can get 1 person into E+ in a scenario where the non-status pax is on an award ticket (
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/15820573-post213.html).
I have heard gate agents enforcing the rule that if you get upgraded out of the Y cabin, your "companions" all have to pay for E+ or get kicked back into E- (see discussion at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...companion.html). You have to be
traveling in the same cabin as your companion. I hadn't heard that the companion needed to be on a ticket paid for entirely with cash -- that's an interesting idea.