Originally Posted by
ijgordon
It seems like that was part of it, but the other, perhaps more critical, part was that the flight was actually overbooked in J, no? Was that a function of AA selling the 2 crew rest seats when they should have been blocked - not just from the seat map, but *also* from available inventory (which I think is separate)?
Well, yes, the oversell was an important part of picture. But generally, when there is an oversell situation, I don't believe people with already assigned seats get kicked out of their seats. The issue here was that the seats that OP were in should have been blocked—and I think when there is a schedule/aircraft change, it also tends to mess up seat assignments.
In any event, I stand by my original gut feeling that the situation OP faced here is generally not as likely to happen with paid J.