I'm getting married on September 9. We were going to wait until the summer of 2001 to officially tie the knot because I'd already blown all of my vacation for this year on a long-planned trip to China and we wanted to plan a nice honeymoon, but...the date was open at the place we wanted to get married, I figured it would be cool to be a bride in 2000 and we both felt fine with postponing our honeymoon to next February.

Before I got engaged in March, I'd already committed to speaking at an industry conference in Chicago that runs from Sept 10-12, which means that that's where my betrothed and I will be spending our first post-nuptials week. I bought my UA ticket through my corporate travel agency, and bought his at a UA airport counter (because I'm not allowed to book any personal travel -- his or mine -- through our corporate agency without major paperwork/set of higher-level approval signatures).

Tonight I called United to request that they assign him a seat next to mine in the Premier Zone for our flight from PDX to ORD on Sept 11. (Since 1993, I've had PremEx or better status on UA.) I explained that I knew this wasn't standard policy, since we're traveling on different records, but that agents had bent this particular set of rules for me before, and anyway, we will be newly wed! The agent put me on hold for a few minutes while she checked to see if this could be done after warning me that "they are getting very strict about these things recently." Turns out THEY WON'T DO IT!!! They'll be happy to seat us together in the back of the plane, but they will not open up a seat next to me in the exit or bulkhead rows (where my 6'6" fiance is most comfortable). I'll bet that trying to upgrade him using my 500 mile upgrades certs is out of the question, too, but I didn't bother asking. Funny thing is, if I had booked his travel as an award ticket (vs. a revenue ticket), they would have happily opened up a Premier Zone seat next to me to accomodate him. Go figure. I deliberately go out of my way to fly United to get to my job in the Silicon Valley (via SFO) every week, and this is the thanks I get! I plan to try my plea again tomorrow with a different, hopefully more understanding cast of characters at the Premier desk. Any other suggestions for me out there?