PDXPremier

Yesterday I received a voice mail from a BOS gate agent a few hours before my BOS-SEA flight yesterday telling me that due to a broken seat, either my wife or I would have to downgrade. When I checked the app, my wife and I were still confirmed in First so I decided to wait it out and see what would happen. We got to the ticket counter in BOS, printed our boarding passes, and saw that we were still in First less than 2 hours before departure so I figured they may have bumped someone else. At the gate just before boarding my wife's seat assignment suddenly switched to 11C so I went to the counter and asked about it. Supposedly since we were not "confirmed" (I think he meant paid) in First, my wife had to be downgraded. As two MVPG who "confirmed" our first class seats weeks ago with GGUs I had a hard time believing that we were the lowest on the list to be involuntarily downgraded. I fully agree that paid first class passengers should be the last to be bumped but on a 737-900 with 16 (now 15) seats in F, I have a hard time believing that everyone above us paid for first class. I'm just curious if AS actually has a specific policy to follow or if it's up to the individual gate agents?

jsguyrus

The usual order of downgrades is whoever's seat is unavailable gets the downgrade. If you go from 16 FC seats to 12 due to a plane switch, its all of row 4 that gets downgraded. If your seat in FC is broken its you who gets the downgrade. They don't seem to prioritize by fare or status.

PDXPremier

I wish that was the case with us....we were in 3A and 3C....the broken seat was 3D.

anteater

AFAIK:

Yes, there is a FC downgrade policy (eg tail swap, FAM, inop seat, etc) and it’s not published by AS. 🤙🏻🥃

jsguyrus

You obviously had the alternate downgrade criteria, just pick someone!

PDXPremier

It does seem like the "easy" button would be to just pick the person in the broken seat....would be far easier to justify.

NoLaGent

What was the resolution? Was she reinstated?

PDXPremier

Nope....they took her 3A next to me and moved her to 19F....she isn't a fan of aisle seats so she took the seat in main cabin instead of my aisle seat in 3C which she could have taken. I assume the lady in the broken seat got moved into my wife's seat. The FA in F still had my wife's F meal order when she came around asking about meal choices....too bad they couldn't have just sent her apricot chicken order back to her in main although there is probably a rule against that. The whole experience was just a disappointment all around.

notquiteaff

Any “we’re sorry” compensation, other than the return of the GGU, presumably?

PDXPremier

I was told by the FAs that they would take care of her so it sounds like they may have given her some miles and she did get free snacks...lol. I have to ask Customer Care for the GGU back but I really wish the GAs would proactively provide the compensation when they are the ones actively processing the downgrade...passing this off to the FAs seems tacky.

ssk244

Wow, sorry that really sucks. Did she get her GGU back? I think the logical order would be to downgrade those who were upgraded last (so I guess MVPs/MVP Golds who did NOT use a GGU). It seems unfair to downgrade those who used GGUs before those who got a complimentary upgrade.

lonelygod

GGU fares are often expensive (N fare), so ask for the potential fare difference.

I always wonder how instrument-supported upgrade ticket is being treated at AS. At least when doing SDC, it’s not confirmed F for the new flight.

DL thinks a RUC-ticket is a “paid” ticket and has can do last open-seat SDC. Not quite sure how SWU supported ticket at AA or UA works.

jrl767

when this happened to Mrs767 a couple years back (*NOT* for a broken seat or FAM; GA just handed her a new BP for 16D instead of 2D) they gave her 3000 miles and promptly reissued the GGU to my account

I didn’t think to inquire about refund of fare difference, but iirc lowest coach and GGU-eligible were the same

thomas22

something similar happened to us last month. confirmed upgrade for wife and i, and suddenly we noticed while waiting in the lounge for our flight that we were suddenly waitlisted. No one could help (airport customer service, phone customer service, lounge customer service) because it was too close to departure, had to wait for gate agent to show up. explained the situation to her and she seemed unable to do anything. i told her this was unacceptable, she asked if i wanted to talk to her supervisor(?). After waiting a while as boarding was getting ready to start i reapproached the agent as i had not spoken to anyone else yet. She told me to standby that the supervisor was fixing it. I watched them downgrade two people who attempted to board in first class. We finally were able to board about midway through the process.

What i don't understand (other than why it happened at all) is what happened to our seats. We got one of our original seats back, in the other seat was a 100k million miler who said he had that seat for a while. He offered to switch seats so my wife and i could sit together. When i explained to the flight attendant why the names did not match her current list she said she saw our names in our original seats on her list while she was on her previous flight. She also said there was no way that million miler would ever be downgraded (HVC?).

So when we lost our original seats at about t-2 hours why where the replacement people not the ones that were bumped? it almost seems there were multiple people assigned the same seats at the same time?

isaacchambers

I may receive some flack about this position......

I think fully paid revenue first class seats should have priority....full stop. They paid to be there. I think when there is a downgrade necessary (regardless of reason), it should be as follows:
1. LMU paid upgrade (if no more elites are waiting)
2. Complementary U class upgrades of elites in order of elite status (i.e. MVPs get downgraded first..then so on)
3. GGU U class upgrades
4. IF it comes to revenue....elite status, fare class, then time of checkin....

As much as i enjoy upgrades and fly alaska due to the % is higher....i understand they are space available upgrades.....