gunn

Has anyone has this happen to you?


Since I'm a lowly silver that's currently batting right at 50% for segment upgrades (90% of my flying is IAH-LAX and LAX-IAH), I had pretty much resigned myself to flying coach on my outbound segment this weekend. Suddenly, right before the doors were about to close, a guy walks up to me and tells me that there's a free seat up in 1st. Great, gin & tonic, almonds, and a salad instead of carrots + a coke (who in their right mind eats that meatloaf sandwich, anyway) -- it was a decent start to the weekend.

2 minutes later, right as I was making myself comfortable in first, the ... clown comes back and tells me that "I'm sorry sir, the passenger who has this seat was in the bathroom - you'll have to go back to coach." I was too shocked to do much but walk back to coach shaking my head.

...?! Don't these people track how many people board their planes? Surely, they should know if 1st has boarded full, right?

I'm debating about firing off a letter to customer service but before I do, I just wanted to see if anyone else has had this happen to them so I can have a retort ready. Either way, I'm sure they'll just give me a line like "oh, this _never_ happens"

-g

Xyzzy

What a class act, that CO!

fly co to see the yanks

it's really not that big of a deal. the gate agent probably was on board doing a count and noticed the empty seat without having the print out from the gate. when the mistake was noticed, it was corrected.

"no harm, no foul."

apirchik

Fire the letter off - you deserve compensation just for the humiliation caused to you by the gate agent.

cmdinnyc

Someone else experienced a similar situation.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum20/HTML/008964.html

Let's Go

I must agree with fly co to see the yanks bigtime!

[This message has been edited by Let's Go (edited 09-22-2003).]

[This message has been edited by Let's Go (edited 09-22-2003).]

ronin

I've never had an agent tap me for a last minute upgrade without handing me a revised boarding pass showing my new seat. Did that happen?

snake

I think it was an innocent goof on the part of the CO folks. They are usually in a hurry to get the flights off on time, they were trying to make sure that somebody was in that seat.

Would you rather that they didn't try to make a last minute effort to upgrade elites?

Sure it would have been nice if they had been on top of everything, life goes on, get on with yours.

fly co to see the yanks

instead of being upset, thank the agent for trying. a lazy agent wouldn't even think to move you up without a revised boarding pass in hand. the agent saw the empty seat, somehow remembered you were elite, and moved you up by accident.

again, no harm, no foul. how much do you want??

[This message has been edited by fly co to see the yanks (edited 09-22-2003).]

dbaker

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Either all upgrades should be done officially through the computer system well before pushback with the potential of a no-show (perhaps checked in but didn't board or missed connection) leaving an empty seat in first -- or give the authority to gate agents to do last second upgrades with the potential for the unusal error.

Certainly you can't expect the plane to be ready to push, yet they hold for 4 minutes while the agent checks the seat assignments and spits out a new boarding pass.

H53Epilot

Don't they have Gin and Tonic in steerage?

fly co to see the yanks

only for the elites in the exit row.

12345

What kind of nonsense is this? No harm done? Be appreciative for well-intentioned incompetence? I have seen this happen to several people, so it is not isolated, though it has never happened to me, since I almost invariably get upgraded well before arriving at the airport, but it is insulting, humiliating, and damaging to all except those with no self-respect and a bit too much corporate idolatry than I can manage. You deserve a lot more than an "I'm sorry," and I think we deserve a lot more self-respect than the "hit me again, it feels good" advice.

fly co to see the yanks

for instance??

[This message has been edited by fly co to see the yanks (edited 09-23-2003).]

snake

What would Delta do?