There is no way to make this short, so either move on if you have no time or liking for wordy rants … or settle in for a long and somewhat sordid story!!

Today I had a very disconcerting interaction with the Estonian call center, which fortunately subsequently was rectified by the Danish Hotline.

This is what happened:

My wife’s mother, living in Denmark, suddenly became deadly ill which we became informed about May 17 PM. As it is clear she will die within the 3-4 days, my wife and oldest son have to go there immediately. Thus I was happy to book an Economy Extra ticket from SLC - SEA - CPH on late on May 17th for May 19th. . Because United was overbooked from SFO-SEA, they were put on a United partner flight SLC-SEA (Alaska) and because Alaska partners with Delta, they ended up on a Delta flight leaving SLC in the PM on May 19th. My son is an adult, but severely disabled and has to sit with either me or my wife to make sure he is OK and we got all seats reserved, including the DL flight using my and My wife’s DL status on the otherwise overbooked DL flight. So far so good!
Received a call this am (May 18) from The Estonia call center telling me that because of the DL flight, the ticket has to be issued as a paper ticket and that since they could not get it to us before they left, they would have to rebook us SLC-ORD-CPH.
The following is a summary of my perception of the further, deteriorating conversation:

ME OK then, what seat will they get?
CC-EST Well, the flights are full so there is no way for me to make seat assignments, and thus no way I can assure that they will be seated together, you need to negotiate that with UA/SK at the gate.
ME Not acceptable due to my son’s disability, we have to get a guarantee that they get seated together
CC-EST I can not do that, check with United, they will “most likely” be able to do so.
ME Not good enough, as if they can’t, they can’t fly and they have to get to Denmark by Sunday. Can the paper ticket be issued by UA and us pick it up at the UA counter?
CC-EST I can not do that, the system is not set up for that.
b]ME[/b] Then I will have to insist that we keep the reservation through SEA where we have seat assignments or you need to upgrade them to FC/BC if that gets them seats together. Could you please check with your supervisor?
CC-EST (audible change in tone) Sir, we do not upgrade Economy Extra just because paxes request it. I can re-issue the ticket from SEA-CPH and then you can purchase one-way tickets on Delta (put on hold while checking with supervisor) ….Sir, my Supervisor says the same.
ME OK, I can do that. Will SAS reimburse me the $700 for 2 one-way tickets to Seattle?
CC-EST (Clearly irritated) Why would SAS do that? - we are giving you a perfectly good alternative option to get to CPH via ORD!!
ME So you are now able to give me seat assignments?
CC-EST Sir, we just went over that, I can not do that, you can call United and work it out with them
ME But then you don’t understand!: they have to go to Denmark, they have to sit together because of my son’s disability. By you not being able to guarantee that in your alternative and knowing how crazy things get at the gate when a flight is overbooked, I can not take that chance. If you can guarantee them seats together, we accept your alternative.
CC-EST I could do that, but with your attitude I do not see why I should. Either you take the option through ORD I offer or I will have to cancel the whole reservation\
ME DO NOT CANCEL THIS RESERVATION PLEASE! I may just purchase the one-way tickets on DL and deal with SAS afterwards
CC-EST Sir, that will get you nowhere and I either will have to cancel the reservation or book you through ORD as the paper ticket in the system now can not stand with you having no option to pick up the ticket in SLC
ME Since I have an “attitude”, I do not believe any further conversation between the two of us serves any purpose. I would like to either talk to your supervisor or will call another call center
CC-EST <click!!>

I then called the Danish SAS Hotline and talked to a very nice (Danish) agent who had no problems overriding the system and providing us with 2 seats together from SLC-SFO and SFO-SEA (and SEA-CPH) despite these flights being listed as being full on the seat map. Problem solved. They would have to leave 4 hours earlier, but THAT I find to be acceptable - as long as they can sit together.

Traveling more than 200K BIS miles per year myself (25K or so of them on SK) and over time believing I know what is reasonable and what is not in this business, am I totally off base asking SAS to rectify this problem they created?: they sold me a ticket 48 hours before a flight telling me it was electronic, and then calls me 24 hours before to tell me that they made a mistake (issuing a paper ticket that could not be delivered in time, with no recourse) and offering a to me unacceptable alternative (because of my son’s disability?) with the threat of canceling the ticket if we don’t comply, leaving us in a terrible position as far as finding seats to CPH May 19th? Personally I find this to be unacceptable!