Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Aside from the snide personal attacks in the thread, I stand by my opinion and my actions. There is a process to be followed, and if I'm in line for that upgrade, it's not up to a passenger to decide who sits there especially as there is a process for a customer to follow to opt-out of the upgrade either automatically, or after it clears.
If someone is upgraded before they even leave for the airport and they already know they are traveling with someone they want to sit beside, why wait until boarding to sort out the seating? Call UA and have everything adjusted before hand so you're not disrupting the process and can be assured of adjacent seats in Y. If left to the last minute, I have no sympathy, sorry. I also do not companion-upgrade strangers of any kind when I know other customers are on the upgrade standby list, that's just common courtesy.
While you are right that the process should be followed, the OP asked about the etiquette.
The answer to that should be that you do not split your PNR from your spouse, so you do not get upgraded separately from her when you had booked seats together in Y. If, for some reason, you got split and upgraded separately, then the only practical recourse is to swap with the person who got assigned to your seat (which likely happened because you did not follow the etiquette) - you may involve the GA, if she is not too busy, but making her undo seating assignments and moving people around is time consuming and impacts everybody on the plane. So the loss of the upgrade to another person from a person who was ahead of you in the list is a relatively small price to pay for the overall good of the flight.