Well I dont place all the blame to AS here. Both AS and OP are partly to blame for the situation. Are you flying with the family on that flight on the same ticket? If not then elite benefits have no bearing to them unless they are elites as well. As noted AS sent out communications quite some long time ago. And if you book flights far in advance as an elite traveler you should then know that its wise to check your reservations quite often for changes of A/C, seats, and schedules. On the flip side Im scratching my head wondering why AS split people up seated together on the same ticket but I guess the computer software or lack thereof did it. I check mine at least monthly but usually weekly. @:-)And as a final note I might add that AS made the seat numbering changes to HELP elite flyers booked in exit rows from being bumped out of them for A/C swaps^
I disagree with you on this for many reasons and yes I am flying on the same flight. Why should family that was seated next to each other in row 11, which no longer exists, be moved to different rows further in the back of the plane? This is totally on AS management and their lack of thinking through their new policy.
ANC, I understand your wanting to think AS is looking out for their customers best interest. In my case, they are not. I do applaud the supervisor in the Phoenix call center for resolving this issue for me. She also agreed that this issue never should have happened in the first place.
I fly weekly so I do check my reservations often. With flights more than 6 months out, do it monthly since it shouldn't change too much. Maybe I'm the outlier here with this issue but what AS originally stated to me from the 75K desk is just wrong. The folks on the phone had a hard time grasping that the physical seating didn't change, just the numbering. I found out later that due to the non purchase of a specific software package from SABRE, these issue would happen. AS management should have done the right thing and purchased the software that would have avoided this whole mess!