Originally Posted by
mduell
Yes, this is completely standard for UA. UA told you this up front (rule 4 E), did it, and followed up in their standard manner.
UA really needs to improve their messaging here that you're making an advance seating request and that it is not assigned/confirmed/irrevocable. Leading carriers like Cathay make this pretty clear.
Despite UA's poor messaging, I have a dim view of these posts where it's so important they sit together on very expensive tickets, but they can't be bothered to pay for available seats together in E+.
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These two things conflict for me.
Why would the OP pay for E+, if that is just a seat
request. Did I miss the rule where seat
requests in E- is not guaranteed and passengers who have seats together can be split up but a seat
request in E+ guarantees the passengers won't be split up? I do understand buying E+ at check-in (actually, getting boarding passes with seat assignments anywhere in the aircraft) significantly reduces the chance of a seat move as equipments swaps and faulty IT systems are less likely to have an impact at that juncture, but spending money in hopes United doesn't make another mistake isn't the answer to this problem/rule.