Originally Posted by
gokeeper
You can always change your seat on ua.com, so I would suggest just book any random seat and go back to ua.com / app, move yourself to a preferred seat. Do the same after you make Gold, move to E+.
This! The seat selection tool in DTS is basically worthless, especially for Pax with status. Using the airline's own website to select seats is almost always better. You should be able to select seats using UA's website as soon as the flight reservation is made. The flight does not need to be ticketed for you to take advantage of your seating related status benefits (as soon as the reservation is made you can reserve seats per your status).
Originally Posted by
SPN Lifer
When a reservation is under control of a travel agent, UA will not allow substantive changes to the reservation by its own agents.
I am not sure if seat assignments, which are not supposed to have a charge, fall into that category.
IME, seat assignments can be made with almost every domestic airline as soon as the reservation is made, including preferred seating for status pax.