Originally Posted by paterwdb

Had a weird exchange today. IRROP on a flight MCI-DTW-ORF in F today, with the first leg delayed and causing a misconnect to the last flight of the night. Rebooked on an MCI-ATL-ORF where ATL-ORF was not available in F, and with a 4.5 hour layover.

While in flight on the first leg, I noticed that there was now an F seat available on the second leg (for sale) and messaged to see if they could put me back in F. Messenger said there were no seats. I sent a screen shot showing there were two seats for sale, and they just said that there were no seats available. I gave up and figured I would ask in the Sky Club.

Checking in to the ATL-F club, I asked if she could put me in the seat still showing available. She said "no, you would need to go to the gate to see about an upgrade". I explained the situation and that it wasn't an upgrade and she said again "you would have to go to the gate or I guess you could go out to check-in to see if they can do it." I asked "is there not any agent in the Sky Club who can resolve ticketing issues?" and she confirmed that they "don't deal with tickets anymore" and I had to go to the gate of the flight. When explaining the flight wasn't for four hours, she said "yeah, there is nothing I can do but you can go to the help desk and use the phone if you want."

I was annoyed but didn't want to make a scene. I then asked "can you put me on standby for the earlier connecting flight then?" and she said "no, you can do it in the app or you can go to the gate for that flight."

Was this a lazy agent, or have the Sky Club agents been told not to assist passengers any more?

(for those keeping score, I just called and had the flight re-ticketed and got the F seat back).