I have no experience with saver type fare's, so I am pretty clueless. I had hoped that the agents would have a little flexibility with seating. Does not seem to be the case, sadly.

I am MVP and partner is not. I had booked my flight before Saver fares, and later booked my partner on a Saver (X) fare on same flight. He was seated in back of course, (not assigned until +24) and I was 10F. I did link the reservations together. For some reason, his FF number would not go into his reservation, so when we checked bags, we went to the MVP desk, I had them fix something on my reservation, then fixed his. I asked if they could move him up to the empty middle seat next to me, 10E. She said "certainly", then went in to do it, and after clicking around for a while, said that she was not able to because he had booked a saver ticket. The flight was not even close to being full, and went out with that seat next to me empty, along with almost every middle seat. I had hoped that since the reservations were linked, they would seat him next to me.

While I get it, that they do this to keep people from doing exactly what I had done, book one regular and one Saver fare, then moving later, but really this sucks. I doubt I will ever book anything but Saver fares, so it does nothing to encourage me to book Main. All it does is piss me off, and encourage me to fly Southwest, where at least I have a chance of sitting in the front of the plane with my traveling partner on their lowest fares.

I wonder if you could wait until the last to board, then ask if anyone is seated in a certain seat, then sit in it if no one is?