Bumping this existing thread to see if anybody else has paid for an empty adjacent seat on United and had the opportunity to see what gate agents would offer for volunteering either just the empty seat, or both occupied & empty seats. I thought about starting a new thread, but this thread's topic seemed sufficiently closely related to me to just pile on here.
I have an upcoming itinerary to London where I'm on a revenue ticket (cheap fare basis not eligible for miles award upgrade or even SWU), and used award miles for the empty seat. The 50K miles saver award was cheaper than two 30K one-way upgrades, even if I had bought an eligible fare basis for my revenue ticket; and I can confirm it now, whereas putting in for upgrades would probably not confirm until the day of the flight. I figured this guarantees me reasonable comfort even if United succeeds in packing the plane in the next few months, and I could easily buy a gourmet picnic basket filled with amazing savories far exceeding what I'd get in trans-Atlantic business class. And this is better than traveling myself on the award ticket, of course, since that wouldn't earn me my much-valued EQM's.
What I'd be hoping for is United needing both seats, accomodating me in a single business class seat on the next flight, but giving me double the VDB compensation amount that they've announced to solicit volunteers. I figure that that seems fair from the POV that had they found a party of two to volunteer instead of me, they would have to find two seats in which to reaccomodate them. I could see a counter-argument from United GA's that I'd be as comfortable in a business class seat as I would have been with my empty economy cabin seat, and thus they should only have to offer one seat worth of VDB travel credits; then I'd say give me two economy seats as reaccomodation and two seats worth of VDB travel credits, treating me exactly as they would any party of two. The real resolution on any given day, of course, would be how the GA feels that day and whether they have other prospective volunteers crowding the gate counter, but I'm curious if any FT'ers have real experience to share.