Originally Posted by
terryversay
It was a 320 so there were only three rows of 2-2, for a 3h ride. I wouldn't mind any seat in that config on a quick hop.
I pulled up EF and saw there were two unoccupied seats in J when I was confirmed - attempted to select the seats but failed.
I am not familiar with capabilities of EF. Can it tell you if those seats are sold and if there is oversell? Same way you were looking at it and seeing two unoccupied seats, could someone else not be doing the same, and thinking same oblivious to the fact that someone else (you) has claim to one of those seats? I have personally never been in situation where I am checked in without ability to select a seat where the cabin was not oversold.
Originally Posted by
lessthanzero
Wow. What a cluster. I'm sorry for OP. And yes, relatively easy to advise that if you want to be safe, get to the gate early. Duh. But that wasn't really the question. Is she entitled to compensation or not, as well as, did UA mess up or not. I'm in the yes camp on both counts.
Yes but for those of us reading it we want to understand the situation and learn from the OP experience such that we can avoid falling in same situation. Most of us are not hoping for stuff like this to happen because we want compensation. I think the compensation issue for the OP was answered in the first 10 to 20 posts - the rest really is learning about the circumstances, why it happened, and from that we learn what to do if we encounter such situation and what to do to avoid it too. That is what makes this forum very valuable to all of us and to lurkers or anyone doing a Google search - we learn from each other's experiences - both positive and negative.