Originally Posted by
keloutwest
Missing a detail here. What do you mean you were refunded the $750? Why did they refund you rather than assign you seats? If they oversold the F cabin you should have waited until departure for big $$$ in an involuntary downgrade (also I don’t believe UA oversells F (J) anymore)
I asked the person on the phone to re-assign me seats but he was unable to. His quote was something like the "seats are locked and under airport control." I do see the refund has been made to my account.
Thanks for the tip on the involuntary downgrade! I didn't know that but will file it away for the future.
Originally Posted by
ezefllying
This is pure speculation, but perhaps they submitted a refund request to the refunds department, and you haven't yet officially been refunded? And, once you are, you'll be downgraded?
Alternatively, the refund may not have gone through and you're still ticketed in First.
Third alternative: The refund was processed but, for whatever reason, you weren't downgraded.
Is this a long flight? And how young are your kids? If this is a 2-3-hour flight and your family members are teenagers or older, I'd be inclined to roll the dice and see what happens. Maybe things work out (everyone gets upgraded), you get very lucky (everyone gets upgraded and they give you your money back), things sort of work out (you're all back in coach, together) or things don't really work out (you're all assigned across the Y cabin). In any event, none is terribly serious, and if you are all randomly assigned, you can probably get a few miles or a credit with a clearly written complaint. If the flight is short and no one's too young, that's not much more than a (valid) annoyance.
I would note that, on many domestic aircraft, United blocks seats 7D and E (or 7C and D on certain regional jets) until 24-48 hours prior to departure. When check-in opens, see if you can grab them. They're two of the best seats in the cabin, with extra legroom.
Thank you very much for the tips! Flight is less than 3 hours but the youngest is 10. She would give me an earful if she knew she didn't have a seat yet
I just checked and do see that the refund has been processed. We'll see what happens!
Originally Posted by
MBS MillionMiler
Most aircraft have at least a few seats that are blocked until closer to departure.
Do you happen to be on a 757-200? If that’s the case and it’s a domestic or shorter international flight, 4A/4B are blocked until 24 hours before departure. Similar blocking occurs on other aircraft, AFAIK, I just don’t know the specifics. Maybe if you give us some more info, we can help with suggestions.
I too have questions, if they refunded one for $750, and three of you are still in F, did they split the record of the 4th person I to its own reservation? If not, then all 4 of you are still in F.
They did not split the reservation. It shows three of us in First and one as unassigned.
Update — I just checked again and was able to seat all of us up in first
Thank you to everyone for your suggestions. I'll let you know what happens when we check in 🤞