Upgrade granted...Denied Upgrade
 

On CO metal ANC to SEA last night, was first on upgrade list and watching. Boarded and sat in original seat. Within seconds, checking the mobile app, saw my name assigned to 4A in first class. Flight was very light...walked up to lead FA before door closed and showed her the upgrade being processed, then asked if I can take my seat. She said that she does not have authority to do so (I understood that because I still needed a boarding pass with the new seat assignment). I asked very politely to contact the gate agent (via intercom or radio). She said she would "try" and asked me to return to my seat. I complied. Waited about 10 minutes and observed that lead FA did not use intercom and continued to go about other tasks. Door closed - remained in coach. During flight, I spoke to another FA who said that this is very unusual. In fact, in my 21 years of flying CO, this has never happened. In several occasions, my name was called by FA to move up to first class even after taking my seat in coach (agent usually delivers a new boarding pass if they missed you as you boarded).

Upon my return, I filled out the "contact us" form and am awaiting a response. Funny thing, my itinerary showed "R" on that flight when I checked the “my account” web page. So the system processed the upgrade, but the agent did not relay that info to the cabin nor the FA made an effort to contact agent.

Is there anything else I could have done? Any other suggestions?
Thanks for your input.

This is on the GA. From my understanding, they still have control until the main door is shut. If the door wasn't closed and the FA didn't act then I would have asked to exit the plane. I probably would have said something along the lines of "I know you are very busy right now and I'm happy to go handle it with the GA myself".

You are probably due some type of compensation, but I don't know what. Boo on the GA for not walking down the new BP and boo on the FA for not asking for you.

Some people have stood in the doorway until the GA comes down. If you're a 1K I would email 1K Voice even though it was a CO flight.

Or just go take "your" F seat

Assuming ANC has mobile boarding passes (I don't know if it does), you can just refresh your mobile boarding pass (it's easy to do via the iPhone App) and show it to the FA if s/he asks.

But yes, this sounds like gate agent dereliction of duty, particularly if the FC seat remained open.

Did you happen to notice (or did the FA mention) if 4A remained empty?

I had a somewhat similar event happened last week - upgrade cleared IAD/GRU after configuration change to new config. GA says there are no FC seats available so board with my original seat. Upgrade gone from my account, but not shown as used - don't know where it went. Wrote GS customer service and they gave me 10,000 miles and apologized for the plane change - but no explanation as to how upgrade cleared after the plane change if there were no seats and no explanation of where the upgrade went - probably doesn't matter since it was due to expire today. I guess I should feel fortunate that they did not upgrade someone into my old C-class seat.

UAL GS is not what it used to be.

Its like seat 4A is cursed, Same thing happened to me on a SEA - ANC flight back in September. I got upgraded and then at the gate I was downgraded to an economy window seat with no window. :confused: Plus the gate agent did not want to recognize my Premier and Silver Elite status plus he wanted me to walk to the N terminal to get a paper voucher from UA all within 20 min even though I was on the upgrade list :rolleyes:

Thanks for all of your feedback. Other details:
-- Yes, 4A remained vacant the entire flight.
-- No, did not have mobile boarding pass at ANC - just paper boarding pass.
-- Currently Silver with CO.

Here is something interesting. I called the service center a short while ago and explained the situation. The service rep told me that the system processed my upgrade 25minutes prior to departure. That should have been ample time for that to propagate to ANC gate agent and then to mobile app (which it did) and to CO website (my account area) which it did. So all three areas were updated. So the only thing left is the GA and FA just did not want to be bothered? Is that an accurate assessment?

P.S. The customer service rep was completely detached. Did not matter the 21 years of loyalty or that I seemed to have a solid point. I did not ask for anything at start- wanted to see what she would offer (if anything). She had these long pauses when I asked about what CO would do in these situations (as if she was trying to shoo my away). After 17mins of holding after insisting that look further, she got back on the line to say that there is nothing she can do. I would have persisted but after 26 mins on the phone, I had to get back to work.

Call back and ask for downgrade compensation?

Correctly if I'm wrong, but isn't one the the last things a GA does is to hand the flight manifest/final counts to the FA ? Couldn't the FA just have verified against the manifest?

It also happened to me and really pissed me off.

I was on standby and cleared. F was booked full but not all checked in yet. I was #1 on upgrade list. When I was about to board with my Y seat BP, I asked GA "Has F boarded full"? "Yes" she replied without hesitation. I walked in and found a few open seats in F. What a lier.

What's worse, after a while I found on the website that I was cleared for F! Apparently somebody not showed up and the seat was given to me by computer. However, GA was too lazy to give me the new BP:td:

I've had this happen on UA but never CO. On UA I cleared DEN-SEA after I boarded and they let the plane go out with an empty seat. Useless.

The gate agent would have had to bring down the final paperwork to the flight attendants/cockpit which would have shown 4A occupied by the OP. However, the gate agent may have forgot to give the new boarding pass to the OP. This could be an honest, simple mistake or they were just too lazy. Either way, CO may throw some miles your way but you aren't going to find many sympathetic ears at CO.

-RM

Are you eligible to compensation under GG OVS DOWNGRADE if you're given a new seat assignment but agents refuse to issue you a new boarding pass?

All of CO's evidence will show that you were in the FC seat.

Twice in the last year, I saw my upgrade after I had already taken my Y seat. In both cases, I went ahead and took my seat, and (after sitting down) said to the FA, "when the GA comes on board with my new BP, please let him/her know that I've already taken my assigned seat." In one case, the GA appeared a moment later with the BP. In the other case, I saw the FA say something to the GA, who left the plane, then returned with the BP. Not sure, though, if I would not have gotten the upgrade on that second flight.

My view - 1) if it's on your PDA, then it will be on the manifest. 2) if calling you up for your upgrade is a pain for the GA and FA, it will be an even bigger pain for them to downgrade you when you're holding the evidence in your hand.