Weird. I'll keep an eye on that over the next couple weeks as I book my next travel - I've had business travel on plenty of R fares, but they may not have had X fares up long enough that I'd have been burned by it yet.

that's indeed worth a chat with the Concur rep for your corporate account ... they may be able to override it

I have a call into travel at my corp office. Hopefully they can stop this from happening. I often need to make last minute changes to tickets and "X" fare wont work. Thanks!

I have a hypothesis to explain this. If the Saver bucket is sold out for half a round trip the website will not show you Saver fares for the other half of the trip. Google Flights tells you that you need to buy the two halves separately to get the lowest fare, but that won't work with a Companion voucher.

I had an X booking made with Expedia, despite it not being available on the AS website...

I have no experience with saver type fare's, so I am pretty clueless. I had hoped that the agents would have a little flexibility with seating. Does not seem to be the case, sadly.

I am MVP and partner is not. I had booked my flight before Saver fares, and later booked my partner on a Saver (X) fare on same flight. He was seated in back of course, (not assigned until +24) and I was 10F. I did link the reservations together. For some reason, his FF number would not go into his reservation, so when we checked bags, we went to the MVP desk, I had them fix something on my reservation, then fixed his. I asked if they could move him up to the empty middle seat next to me, 10E. She said "certainly", then went in to do it, and after clicking around for a while, said that she was not able to because he had booked a saver ticket. The flight was not even close to being full, and went out with that seat next to me empty, along with almost every middle seat. I had hoped that since the reservations were linked, they would seat him next to me.

While I get it, that they do this to keep people from doing exactly what I had done, book one regular and one Saver fare, then moving later, but really this sucks. I doubt I will ever book anything but Saver fares, so it does nothing to encourage me to book Main. All it does is piss me off, and encourage me to fly Southwest, where at least I have a chance of sitting in the front of the plane with my traveling partner on their lowest fares.

I wonder if you could wait until the last to board, then ask if anyone is seated in a certain seat, then sit in it if no one is?

I hope not. If I decide to pay for a main or premium seat I don't want to start getting bugged by people asking me about empty seats or seeing if I am willing to switch seats. If you wanted to sit next to your partner and booked them on a saver fare, you should have changed your seat to the back, next to them.

I did not mean bugging passengers, I meant asking the agent at the desk. Now that they are selling Saver (X), I doubt I will ever be in that position again, as I will always buy Saver (X) seats. It was just a thought I probably should have kept to myself. ;)

There are no "main seats" or "saver seats". They are all main seats. Some of the main seats just can't be selected if you are on a saver fare. You may still be seated in them though.

And yes, of course you can always ask the gate agent if they can move you to an available seat.

Yes, but that is kind of what I was getting at. I do not think the agent has the ability to move you to an available seat if you book Saver (X) fare, at least not assigning it. The agent I was talking to was helpful and appeared to WANT to help me, but after trying, it looked like she was not able to, at least in her computer. This was an agent at check in though, not a gate agent.

Has anyone had a different experience, and was it with check in agent or gate?

Gate agents can move you wherever they want, once it goes to gate control. They have full control over the seats. They often move people around to accommodate families and groups.

I would hope that they would give priority for "better" seats to people on main fares over saver fares. But people on main fares can choose those seats whenever they want, so, by the time it goes to gate control, I wouldn't see any problem in moving you to any non-premium available seat. They are generally very helpful (although often quite busy on a full flight, so you may have to wait).

I guess I disagree. If you decide to save $30 or whatever and book a saver fare you get what you get and you know that up front. Can you imagine the cluster at boarding if everyone in saver decided to hit the agent up for a better seat?

Saver doesn't restrict you to a certain seat; it restricts the seats that you can pre-select. There's a big difference. You can still buy a saver fare if all the seats available for pre-selection are full; in that case you will be assigned a seat (most likely outside the section that saver can pre-select)

People ask GAs for seat changes all the time. Most people do it when they are in a group and did not manage to select seats beside each other. Some people will do it if they are stuck in a middle, and will request to be moved to a window or aisle if one becomes available. I do it when I get a premium seat that I don't like -- I try to figure out if someone in a seat that I want is likely to be upgraded, and I ask the GA if they can move me to that seat when/if they upgrade that person. I just ask politely and I've never been refused. You don't do it at boarding -- I usually try to get to the gate a little early (the GAs usually show up about 1 hr before takeoff) and try to ask them when they are not too busy. They will get to my request when they get to it, and if they don't (or can't) that's fine too. But they are generally very good at their jobs and are able to accommodate people quite well. Of course if the flight is very full you may be SOL, but that doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't ask (politely, of course).

Just because you're not entitled to something doesn't mean that you can't get it if it's available. Just remember that you're not entitled to it when you ask (ie, you're asking, not demanding, and you need to be ok with it if the answer is "no")