We booked roundtrip flights with American recently, and both legs of the journey were on Airbus 321. On SeatGuru, it looks like Airbus A321 (32B) Layout 3.

On our outbound flight, we sat in a row near the back of the plane, in aisle seats. Cramped of course, but the seats in front of us had space underneath for the carry-on equipment we'd need to access during the flight.

For our return flight, we decided to "upgrade" to Main Cabin Extra, and paid handsomely for the privilege. When we got to our seats (again, both aisle seats), we discovered that they had the entertainment equipment boxes blocking a good portion of the space underneath the seats in front of us. Our carry-on stuff didn't fit neatly under the seats, so I ended up with the same amount of legroom as I had on the outbound flight.

I complained to American, which rejected my claim. Is it possible that some A321s have equipment boxes on all seats, and other A321s (same layout) don't have them? Because if both planes had the exact same layout, I'm furious at American for charging us good money for extra legroom and then giving us seats with even less storage (and ultimately, no more legroom) than the regular Main Cabin seats.