My wife and I are heading to San Fran for her birthday next weekend. On the 8:17AM flight IAD to SFO direct on Friday. Have two exit row seats together. Early morning flight, no big deal, probably sleep anyway. Put in for the upgrade using expiring GPUs, but know that as a 1K on a transcon there is almost no hope for the upgrade. Check last weekend and see they are offering an upgrade $200/person! Great, click, "Accept" and get an error. Back-up and try again, another error. But our seats show FC. Credit card shows:

01-05-2014 **Pending UNITED 800-932-2732 TX $ 416.40
01-05-2014 **Pending UNITED 800-932-2732 TX $ 416.40

Makes sense since I hit "Accept" twice. $200 * two seats + tax = around $416.40. Rather than bother a rep, I file for a refund.

Check again today:
01/05/2014 UNITED 0162391xxxxxxx 800-932-2732 TX $1,063.20
01/05/2014 UNITED 0162391xxxxxxx 800-932-2732 TX $1,063.20

So I call to get this sorted out. Turns it was a web error they won't honor. Either pay an extra $1063.20 or go back to coach. Of course nothing but middle seats, and not even in E+. So we're sitting apart, in middle seats, for 5+ hours, by the bathroom in E-.

Yet another reason to hate united.

Any recourse? My wife was so mad she wanted to just cancel and fly another airline regardless of cost. I want to explore options and makes sure we don't get into a worse mess with higher fares and worse seats before we do anything rash.

So now I go in and the upgrade is available for $641/person. Even though I was just told the only way to upgrade is to pay $1063.20/person.

I wonder if United uses the same company as healthcare.gov to do their website.