Originally Posted by
newyorkgeorge
The question is did the OP reserve seats together or actually pay for the seats. For the latter AA is probably more willing to keep families together since they've paid for that privilege. If they simply found free seats together at booking AA is likely less inclined to keep those seats together. Another unfortunate 21st century reality is that one needs to check their reservation regularly for things like equipment swaps so that if there is an issue it can be resolved beforehand. Waiting for the day of departure and expecting a family to get seats together is risky and problematic. This does not in anyway excuse the behavior of the one agent.
OP called when he couldn’t check in the day before departure and was told to seek out an agent at the airport. Agent suggested going to the gate, gate agent 1 started to help but was overruled by another GA.
There is no evidence that AA prioritizes paid seating over freely selected seating when equipment swaps happen. There are plenty of stories of status holding passengers getting dumped to rear middle seats with equipment changes. AA would simply say sorry, seating isn’t guaranteed and then hope that the passengers forget to ask for a refund of the seat fee.