Change of Equipment on long haul flight - 1K moved to worse seat
My coworker was on EWR-SHA flight (UA86). She is a 1K and was advised that morning that because of equipment change her seat was moved from the coveted middle aisle seat in the 2-2-2 to a side aisle seat. Was told the change of seats were done randomly.
When she explained to UA customer service that she purposefully took the middle aisle seat so not to be bothered by a seatmate during the flight and requested to be moved back , she said they were unable to do this. She complained to no avail and also tried doing the same to GA but again no success.
She is 1K and it also was a paid seat..... does this make sense that they couldnt do a swap over a person who might have had less status or an award seat? Im sure the plane wasnt filled with all 1K pax.
Interestingly enough my mother is a travel agent and I called her before the flight took off and she said there was 1 middle seat open but blocked. I told my colleague this and she inquired when she was on the plane but was told this was saved for the 2nd pilot. So she couldn't move there.
In the end they credited her $450 that she had previously paid on a change fee.... so I guess this is reasonable....its not like the moved her to Economy....but was just surprised they wouldn't move a 1K to another seat in Business as a swap.