Difficulty of Star Alliance Gold in booking close-in aisle/window 772 Bus. seats.
I am based in Toronto and fly frequently to South America and Europe. My airline of choice for most international travel is AC and I am a perennial top-tier status traveler. AC treats me well, overall.
Recently I have traveled twice on short notice to Brazil. AC does the YYZ-GRU run but on both trips, facing long waiting lists for business class in addition to sky-high airfares (in excess of C$12K return) I looked for alternatives and chose UA. I have flown through ORD, EWR and IAD between YYZ & GRU. By and large it's been a decent experience and this morning, on my way home, I had a four-hour layover at EWR and really enjoyed the Polaris lounge in terminal C, which is on par with the best international business class lounges, IMO, including AC's new Signature Lounge at YYZ.
Two of the four legs between the US and GRU were on 777s with a 2-4-2 configuration in the business class cabin, with some seats facing to the rear, sort of BA Club World fashion. It's an outdated product with too many sardines crammed into the tin can. I'm sure UA knows this and I assume they are working to modernize their fleet; but anyway that's not the subject of my complaint. The issue is that, based on my limited sample size of two, there is no way for me, a Star Alliance Gold member and paying business class traveler (C$9K return, on both trips) to book an aisle or window seat. All I can get is a middle seat in one of the banks of four.
On my second trip, on the outbound leg, I begged the UA agent at check-in at YYZ, and she very kindly moved me to a window seat, noting that "I'm not supposed to do this, sir". I thanked her profusely, as you can well imagine, and enjoyed the flight much more than on the first trip.
This is ridiculous, IMO. Granted, the sample size is small, but the agent's comment confirmed my belief that even SA Gold members of programs other than MileagePlus get the last dibs on seat selection. Come on, UA, can't you treat us lowly Aeroplan members better than that, especially when we're paying top dollar?