<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jonhoram:
I think that "accomodating" a frequent flier by actually giving him the seat he was originally assigned is not a monumental request - one that should have been easily resolved. Instead, I was basically mocked for giving up an FC seat. Yet another example of declining service from CO.</font>
Oh please -- once your seat (8A) was given away (not the agent's fault) the agent couldn't easily get it back without inconveniencing other pax. If you refuse the seat they basically have to give it to the next person on the FC list. They can't just assign the person who now is in 8A to your FC seat. What you should have done was to simply ask the person in 8A to sit in FC. That usually does the trick, particularly when your companion is in 8B -- it means 8A is less likely to be traveling with someone else.
Complaining about not being able to easily downgrade as an example of "declining service" is absurd. CO gave you a wonderful trading card in the form of a FC seat.
As far as telling CO in advance that you do NOT want an upgrade, that's a different story. I agree with the others who posted that there should be some way to allow this.