Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: MIA, VIE and DPS
Programs: DL Plat 1MM, AA EXP 3MM, SQ Krisflyer Gold, UA Silver, Marriott LTT, HH Gold
Posts: 1,132
In my experience, the people with assigned seats in rows that are no longer F/J get downgraded.
I had kept upgrades before while a revenue F in the row behind me ended up in Y simply because his row was no longer F. I have seen this often enough that I think this is a computer default. They may manually interfere for a CK - but I think that's about it.
I used to fly a route a fair bit that was operated by a 319 while they went from 3 to 2 rows - and you never knew what aircraft config they had the next day. It didn't take long to learn that picking a seat in the 1st two rows avoided downgrades. I kept my (upgraded) seat in Row 2 while Marco Rubio seemed slightly confused, but sat down in the first row of coach.
Last edited by flying_geek; Jan 29, 2019 at 6:54 am