MJBoston

Hello FT world! I've been reading sporadically. This is my first post. I have medium travel experience for FT standards: EXP with AA for 3 years and 1K/PLT (on and off) with UA for 5+ years.

I get that seat selections are not warranted, at the same time I think that we all have some implicit understanding/expectation that choosing an aisle-exit-row-seat makes flying on a last-row-middle-seat practically impossible. Otherwise why bother selecting seats.

During the past 8 months my seat selections were changed 4 times to some ‘lesser’ option, starting with a paid business class ticket JFK-EZE last December on a 772. I was traveling with my wife on the same reservation, we booked the flight 4 months in advance in row 10, A&B. Sometime before our flight, and without explanation (a proverbial computer glitch), we got separated. We were unable to get seats together until minutes before boarding and, then again, they were in a middle row on a 2 3 2 seat configuration. For the third time this year, today I was moved without reason from an exit-row-aisle seat to a window-seat in the back of a BOS-LAX flight. My seat selection preference is aisle in my AA.com profile. I wouldn't have booked these flights if my original seat options weren't available.

What I find totally unacceptable is that, except for the JFK-EZE flight, there were empty, equivalent to my original choice seats available. I was able to reselect them on-line. This has not happened to me ever before on UA or AA, I feel it's happening too often now in AA – Why? I'm a younger (looking) business traveler type and I've read a few old and new posts about the ‘animosity’ of certain AA customer service personnel towards ‘my type’. Let me tell you, it's subtle but it’s real, although I find it improbable to be coded into aa.com

I don't have the time to check my trips on a regular basis to keep up with random changes... Then again, I'll be quite upset if I'm pushed from Y+ to Y- on a 5+hour flight.

Do you feel that there is an intrinsic problem (computer/customer service) with reservations? Have this happened to you recently?

diver858

This has NEVER happened to me on AA or AS, often on BA, UA.

Is it possible that seat changes are due to changes in schedules, equipment? From my experience, AA sends an email, advising of any such changes. Should there be ANY concerns, I will typically call and ask for modification.

Perfect example is an award reservation EYW-MIA-SAN for Oct 2015. When AA recently rebanked flights in MIA, the schedule changed, leaving about 45 minutes between flights. Concerned about the long walk from the AE area in MIA to the main terminal, checked bags making the connection, I called to ask for an earlier EYW-MIA flight, which would give us about 3 hours on the ground in MIA - strong preference. Although there was no Z inventory available, the agent was able to get us on the earlier flight.

TravelLawyer

Welcome to FT! I think this seems like flight or equipment changes. That happened to me recent when the row I pre-selected was MCE, but then when we flew, it was an older version of the same plane with only 3 rows of MCE (mine was not one of them).

MJBoston

Thanks for answering !

This never happened to me before last December. Today's change, which I was lucky to catch, was on AA205 for 07-30. I don't know if there was an equipment change (How would you know?), but I am sure that the only email I received was the booking confirmation. Quite sure that I had no emails for the other 3 instances, in particular December's JFK-EZE flight. I wrote to AA then & my wife will always remind me about it...

iplaybass

You might consider an EF subscription and doing the equipment change alerts. AFAIK, AA won't notify you of equipment changes unless it creates an IDG. Y+ to Y- isn't considered a downgrade, nor is an exchange of seats within a class.Only thing I can think of is that a high value flyer takes precedence over any existing seating arrangements. Happened to me on a LHR-DFW F award. At least they didn't split me and my wife up.