Ford Fairlane

TL;DR: If you're an elite who purchases fares that let you book directly into PC, you might want to start checking your seat assignments more frequently than you do now.

Disclaimer: I am not entitled to anything but death and taxes. And now for the rest of the story:

All the way back in April, I booked into PC using a Companion Fare for a SEA/OGG flight in December.

Recently, I was going through all my reservations to see how crowded things were getting on each flight. And what on earth? Our adjacent seats to OGG had been moved from PC to row 15. But there were still several empty middle seats in PC and entirely empty exit rows.

The agent I got on the phone said there was an aircraft swap and that the system "re-ordered passengers" according to "various factors" but couldn't say exactly what they were in this case. So no insight into why we were sent to row 15.

She started listing theoretical reasons: There may have been people with paid PC seats moved when another flight was cancelled. So we checked. No flights for that route cancelled that day +/-1. Or maybe some people in FC got bumped to PE with the aircraft swap. So why were there still open seats in FC? Then she suggested some possible reasons that made zero sense and finally offered $50 each as a courtesy, like I'd won a round of Stump the Agent.

No thank you. I asked for a supervisor who agreed that something seemed off and put me on a long hold while she audited all the seats in PC to see if she could do anything better than put us in middle seats in PC. When she came back, she said found that an MVP Gold had booked an open seat next to an empty middle on a qualifying fare *after* we'd been bumped back, and that we (being 100K and 75K) should have been put there first/instead. She also wasn't convinced there was a justifiable reason for moving us back to row 15 in the first place. She said "the system" obviously did something wrong (no kidding!), so she made an adjustment that put us back into adjacent PC seats. Sorry, MVPG person who was moved to a nice middle seat in another row to accommodate this correction.

Consequently, now I feel like I have to review all my seat assignments two or three times a day, checking for rogue downgrades nearly as obsessively as I check for FC upgrades after the T-120 windows opens.

ANC RED-EYE

This happened to me on *three* flights in a row (different PNRs) late this past winter/early spring. I did not get much sympathy from agents over them when I called. In one case, our confirmed, adjacent premium class seats on SEA - KOA, which I was planning to fly with my sister and my niece (a lap infant), had turned into separate middle seats far in the back of the plane. The agent didn't care in the least, and couldn't explain it; ultimately I asked a supervisor to move us to completely different routing with worse schedule so that at least we could sit together.

In the end, lesson learned, I now audit my seat assignments quite regularly. Glad you had a good outcome.

Bretmd

Why not just choose the exit row and get the $100 credit they offered? You could buy yourself some drinks and you’d still be ahead.

Instead, you just knowingly switched someone else to an inferior seat on a long flight, which is exactly the complaint that caused you to be so upset as to call Alaska and painstakingly sort through all of this.

BTW there are no “nice middle” seats. Not in premium class or elsewhere in the aircraft.

notquiteaff

What happens to you is not justifiable. But what AS did to the MVPG person wasn’t any better. A game of elite whackamole. And the root cause seems to not get any attention.

Kacee

It's a good idea to babysit your reservations on any airline, not just AS (though two or three times per day is perhaps a bit much).

Nothing AS special here. I've been bumped from assigned seats for no good reason on a long list of airlines, including UA, LH, LX, and QR. Most of these were due to swaps, but sometimes it was the airline affirmatively giving my seat to someone else (UA, QR). There's a long thread on this subject in the UA forum - Random seat changes to UA itineraries after having an assigned seat [Consolidated]

Xrayman

Was the OPs original row 10?

This has occurred to me several times in the past. I NEVER select row 10 any longer and always select a 6-9 row seat(s)in the event of plane change the seats are typically swapped 1:1 in PC.

navydevildoc

Row 6 is also dangerous as it's the ADA seats. I've been bumped from there to accommodate someone.

Ford Fairlane

It was row 6, but not seats that had the green ADA pop-up notice. I intentionally avoided those. But maybe that doesn't matter, as long as it's row 6.

Apart from it being "the system" that did something, that still doesn't explain why we were moved completely out of PC when there were still seats available there.

And note that I didn't "knowingly" do anything but ask for a fact-based explanation. The supervisor undertook the audit on her own initiative and came back with the change already made. But under the exact same circumstances as I've explained them, I'd now *ask* for the audit next time and can't imagine why anyone in that situation (at least those who don't want exit rows) wouldn't do the same. But you do you, as the kids say.

Bretmd

And this change was somehow permanent? If it were me, I would have requested that the agent reverse this decision - give the other passenger their seat back and move me and my companion to an exit row.

Doing an audit is a great idea, especially if it leads to more accountability for the airline in the long run. However, many would avoid that step if offered another solution (exit row) coupled with compensation ($50/person), along with the ability to end a long phone call sooner.

In the end, you chose to bump someone else to an inferior seat. Yes, it was Alaska’s fault that you originally got bumped. But, you could have asked not to bump someone else if you really wanted to pay it forward. 🤷‍♂️

jrl767

exactly what I did when I got my second at-the-gate downgrade within two weeks (having realized, while in 11F about an hour into JFK-SEA the first time, that I should have asked for my original 7F back)

I'm willing to bet that no one would think of that in real time (although in OP's case, "real time" apparently wasn't at the gate)