MrCoffee

Here's a question.. Mainly just wanted to know what/why it happened..

Was leaving Cisco Networkers in LAS on Saturday. Checked in at 8:30am for the 11:26am to PHX.

Using the kiosk, it asked me if I wanted to go standby on an earlier flight. Sure, I say. Then it pops up and says no seats are available on the earlier flight. See the gate agent for a seat assignment.

Deciding not to bother getting stuck with a middle seat, I select 'restart' on the kiosk, and rerun my res. This time, it comes up and says I need to pay a $100 change fee, since I changed my reservations. (Whoops.)

Cancelling that and moving to the ticket agent, she finds my reservation, and changes it back to the original 11:26am flight, with my original seat. (17A) No worries, I think.

Then it happens.

After boarding, someone has my same seat assignment. He stands around while the ticket agent takes my boarding pass.

The gate agent then comes back on the plane, and quite loudly yells that I'm in the wrong seat, something about my reservation wasn't complete, and that's not my seat. She then hands me a boarding pass for 18B; the dreaded middle seat. (Not to mention she wouldn't back up to to let me give the guy in the seat through.)

I just ended up moving into the window seat (18A), and sure enough, 15 stand-by's come on, and someone gets stuck with my new-sucky seat.

So, what exactly probably happened here? I'm writing a letter to AWA about the gate agent, as even the FA's thought her behavior was uncalled for, but did they screw up my reservation? I can't believe he (the guy with my 17A seat) checked in earlier than me, but even then, I had 17A from the beginning, so unless it happend in the 5 minutes I walked from the kiosk to the ticket agent to fix it, is that possible?

I also think the kiosk has a slight bug in it.. It was nice to ask me to go standby, but it should then ask me again if it can't find a seat assignment, if I'd still like to go on my original flight.. That would have not caused the issues either, me thinks.