Originally Posted by
txaggiemiles
It would seem reassigning traveling companions to adjacent seats in the event of a seat mixup (which occurs all the time for untold number of reasons dating back to pre-pandemic) is the literal definition of "good faith". It wasn't so long ago I remember the "I was traveling with my wife and after the aircraft swap we are in different aisles" posts.
This may not be analogous to the fact pattern being discussed.
I don't disagree, but the data points suggest that the reseating does not always correspond to an equipment swap. And the best course would be to put passengers back in the same type of seat they chose initially, if similar seats are available. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case, so people with carefully laid plans often get shoved into undesirable seats due to last minute equipment swaps. But that's not the fact pattern here.
Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
The purpose of UA's special seating for companions feature is to please the elite by enabling him/her to sit together with friends and family. Chances are that when the nonstatus companion takes one of the best seats, it's at the expense of another elite who later purchases a more expensive ticket on the same flight.
Why would you assume the later passenger is an elite and/or flying on an expensive ticket? These days there are very few business customers, and some of the <14 day fares are not so high. Also fare is irrelevant to SDC - a Silver member could be flying on a cheapo fare and decide to take the earlier flight. Should he bump a 1k companion from an aisle or window seat?
This seems more like a typical UA IT mishap, that is not at the top of the priority list to fix.