Originally Posted by
1KPath
This happened to Mrs1KPath and me last year...We were unable to use GPUs on the flight to LHR so I purchased three seats in Y+ and we were set...or so we thought...a few minutes before closing the door a GA came on board and said that they were using the middle seat and that we would have to apply for a refund...and if we did not like the situation that they would take us off the flight put us on a flight the next day. It turns out that the center seat was occupied by a "contract" worker for UA...who needed to get to LHR for a B-day party.
Upon arriving at LHR, Mrs1KPath went into full lawyer mode (she is a Law School professor and trial attorney) and tracked down the UA station manager and had a "little" chat with him...by the next morning we had a full refund for all three of our tickets and a very large customer service certificate as well...we were also upgraded to GF for the return flight and given a bottle of Champagne for our hotel room. By the time we made it back to the States (five days later), we had received two more large CS certs and a personal apology from our original departure city station manager stating that the GA violated a number of rules/standards and that said agent was no longer employed by UA.
As fastair indicated, I am sure that sometimes/maybe even most of the time this is an innocent mistake (but still due compensation)...but as my experience shows, it sometimes is not!
1. GS.
2. Paid seat given to nonrev travelling off the clock. Probably a grievous violation of UA policies.
OP, don't expect the same results for a mere 1K.
Originally Posted by
mahasamatman
The program is in place for medical necessity and for special circumstances (such as musical instruments). I am confident that they never intended to sell them just for passenger comfort.
The next thing you'll tell me is that it's fine to book the entire F cabin and cancel the reservations after departure so you can have it all for yourself. After all, you can do that on united.com, so is must be OK, right?
If you are willing to pay UA's price for all the seats, yes absolutely.
Of course your analogy is completely (and deliberately) inaccurate, since your pax has cancelled the extra paid seats for a refund. That is not what happened here. Money paid, but no value was received. Not sure why you are having difficulty grasping this concept.
If you're going to use an analogy, please create one that corresponds to the facts.