Seat changes by Agent
 

yesterday in the Cayman Islands the agent called me to the gate and changed my seat to a window. He gave the whole row to someone else. I am a platnium and reserved this seat months in advance. Does the agent have the right to do this?

Yes.

I have had a similar change made to me (my wife really) as well. In my case they moved her from an exit row window to accomodate a mother and daughter travelling together. Ironically the daughter was under 15 so the FAs had to make a bunch of changes on the plane to make it work, but I still didn't get to sit with my wife.

Did you ask the agent why the change was being made, and state you are unhappy with it and will complain? The agent may have the right to do it, but if you don't complain on the spot, or try and escalate to a supervisor, then you just have to accept the change.

i did ask the agent and he was with Cayman Airlines who operates the flights out of GCM. The one Continental employee, was very nice, and told me that there are two computer systems at the airport, one that Cayman Airlines has and one that Co has.

Upon checking further, the Cayman agent lied and put a couple with a child in the row. THe Cayman agent who checked me in didn't even know about upgrades. Very antiquated down there and Continental should use their own staff.

The Continental station manager was very nice and accomidated me

That's terrible.

May I suggest that You make CO Insider (Scott) aware of what took place, not for comps but in order to prevent it from Happening to someone else.

When TW and PN were around boy did it pay to know the Right person, or as some did (not Me I didnt have to) present gifts to the Right people. Being that it wasnt a CO person they can and will do things that shouldnt be done for the person they know or the right gift.

In a similar circumstance, two weeks I was on a flight IAH - AUA, had paid for my first class ticket and selected seat 1E during the online purchase process.

During the coach boarding process, the FA approached me and said that a couple had not been able to get seats together and would I mind taking a window seat in the second row. I politely stated that I really prefered an aisle and wanted to stay where I was. She frowned & walked away, gathered the other FAs together and said loudly "That woman won't even change her seat so a husband & wife can sit together" and then they all turned around to look at me. Of course then the whispers began.

The same FA then moved on to coach and started asking other pax to switch seats to accomodate other couples.

I don't really remember ever witnessing this except in parent/child situations who had not been seated together.

Had I purchased coach and been upgraded, I probably would have swtched, being grateful for the upgrade. But I felt that I paid for first class, far enough in advance to get the seat of my choice -

Will be curious to hear your thoughts

We always book under separate records. and have had this happen several times. I think they look at the seating charts and figure that people who aren't on same res are traveling solo and won't mind (or notice?) the switch. It irks me to no end, as I often have to work hard to wrangle 4 or more seats somewhat together, esp in F, and by the time we notice changes, we are separated all over with nowhere left to go. I know that sometimes the switches are made for FAMs (and try to avoid booking "FAM rows" as best I can), but I have also boarded often to see families seated together in our previous seats.

Robin

Good for you for standing your ground. I haven't seen this happen on CO, but I have seen it on UA many times. I guess the FAs don't see a difference in an aisle or window seat, but I sure do.

I've had the opposite happen! Flying in coach on KLM (as a CO codeshare) out of AMS with my teenaged daughter on separate tickets and we had both chosen seats we liked, not together on purpose. The GA changed our seats to be together after she figured out we were traveling together so that one of us ended up with a middle seat to accomodate some guy who wanted the aisle. It was done without asking us, fait accompli. This was a few years ago and extremely annoying. It is frustrating when you go to the point of making your own seat selections and then have GAs thinking they know best for the world.

In a more recent experience on CO as a silver elite I had already boarded a flight out of EWR and was sitting in an aisle exit row seat with the correct seat assignment. A man boarded late with the same seat assignment and went to complain. They made me move to a worse seat. I have no idea why as I was told nothing, just that I was in the wrong seat although I had checked in online for that seat, had a boarding pass, and fly often so knew exactly what I was doing. I complained and then they gave me the middle seat in the bulkhead. But the GA and FA were extremely rude and obnoxious and threatened to take me off the flight when I complained, citing "homeland security" issues. They refused to tell me their names and in fact lied about their names. They had the pilot come out and talk to me (who was polite, but annoying, it was like they had run to daddy). After the trip I complained to CO customer service and was quite pleased with the response from them. It could have been that the other customer was some Plat elite or some such, or paying a full fare, but no one bothered to tell me -- they simply said that I was wrong and did not have that seat, no justification. If this happens to me again I will ask why precisely they are doing this.

So this can happen, being moved even after boarding with everything in order to resolve conflicts or being moved by some overzealous GA who thinks he or she knows better how to arrange people into families. I think the only solution is to complain and ask for some justication based on fare status or elite status only and, if you don't win on the plane, contact customer service ex post.

Interesting. The other day the fabulous Mrs. Xyzzy was heading out on an EWR-SLC flight. At the gate we asked the agent to reprint her boarding pass (gotta have cardboard, ya know :p) A replacement boarding pass was procured, but we realized something was wrong when we looked at it. Her seat had suddenly changed from 1B to 1A. We complained and were given a funny look by the agent. It took him a whole pile of keystrokes but after pressing the issue another 1A boarding pass was procured. We have no idea what was going on, but someone/something had clearly moved her.