Gold first or Plat
 

While on the return leg of a Iah-New Orleans weekend trip , my wife (CO Gold )recieved her boarding pass at the airport during checkin and was upgraded to first and when I went to the machine after her I was surprised to still be in coach (Co Plat) . We each made seperate reservations on the same day and within 3 minutes of each other so I could not understand how this happened. I spoke with a red coat at the gate and showed him the boarding passes and he very nicely secured me a seat next to my wife while he chuckled about how mistakes sometime happen. Anyone else out there haver a similar expierience?

This one is pretty straightforward, actually.

If you have not been upgraded and you're an Elite (any level), and there is a seat available during checkin, it's yours.

When your wife checked in, there was 1 seat (R1), she got it. When you checked in, it was now R0, you were placed on the standby list.

Your wife could've been silver and still beaten you out.

Usually this isn't much of an issue since they run EUA after dumping a mass of seats. This usually only happens one or two at a time when people switch flights.