FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - united gets into a twitter dispute over passenger seeking free upgrade to E+
Old Sep 19, 2019, 3:27 pm
  #48  
canadiancow
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Originally Posted by dilanesp
No particular offense to you, but this is exactly what the problem is. For whatever reason, people just think they shouldn't have to pay for a better product when it comes to airlines. Indeed, there are pages and pages of instructions on the Internet as to how to ask for free upgrades from gate agents and FA's. And airline employees have to deal with all of these people when they have other things to do.

Your seat assignment on a plane is not an opening bid. It's what you paid for. If you are entitled to a space available upgrade due to status, that's one thing. But if not I think it's shameful to be pestering airline personnel for upgrades. People would never do this to other businesses. Nobody walks up to a supermarket employee and says "I know I only paid for chuck, but can you upgrade me to tenderloin". Nobody, as mentioned, goes to a department store and says "I paid for the store brand jeans but can you upgrade me to designer jeans".

It's just amazing the sense of entitlement that leads to these situations.
I used to ask UC agents if they had any seats closer to the front, and there was a very good chance I'd be given E+ as AC*G. But I never pushed back if they said no (or told me I'd have to pay), and I certainly never Tweeted about it after.

I have no issue with asking the question, but you need to be willing to accept "no" as an answer.

I think the difference between the supermarket example and E+ is that if the supermarket has 100 pounds of chuck and 50 pounds of tenderloin, they only sell 100 pounds of chuck.

If UA has 100 E- seats and 50 E+ seats, they're quite happy to sell 150 E- seats, meaning people regularly pay for E- and sit in E+.

Also, once the door closes, United can't make more money on E+ for that flight. No one else is buying a ticket. Someone could show up to the supermarket 5 minutes later and want to pay for the tenderloin.

I stand by UA's decision, but I haven't seen a good analogy yet, not that I think one should be necessary.
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