<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by avek00:
I think I understand what happened here.
As the new flight only had seats available in First, the agent had to "sell" you a seat in Coach in order to then "upgrade" you into F. To do this, the agent needed to officially "change" your reservation to a Y seat on that flight, which warrants a $100 change fee. (FWIW, the agent might only have been able to get the Y seat opened on the flight because you're Gold/Platinum Elite.)Once the change was made, you were then "upgraded" for free.
The agent did not extort $100. Simply placing you on the flight in FC without an add/collect would have subjected the agent to possible disciplinary action. Therefore, s/he went by the book and followed what are IMHO reasonable procedures.
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Avek00 - I suspect that you're analysis is correct. However, couldn't the gate agent have upgraded another passenger into first, opening a coach seat for IP?