Xyzzy

The OP arrived 5 minutes before departure. The rules state that you have to be at the departure gate 15 minutes before departure. One could argue that the agent should have known the passengers would be arriving soon, but at what point do they then give up on waiting, reassign the seats, and close the door? I think that the agent did the proper thing by trying to get the flight out on time. I also think the OP should contact NW about getting some miles back.

fireworksboy

I agree with the above as well. Two complications immediately arise if someone wants CO to start a new policy of waiting for connecting passengers - in general and those that have upgrades needing to be protected. (a) just because a flight has "landed" doesn't mean it won't de-plane in a timely manner (think taxi, gate/jeyway issues) and (b) I may get from one side of the airport to the other a lot faster (or slower) than someone else. At what point do you delay all the other hundreds of passengers on that flight?

CO already has a policy for this - the flight will be closed 15 minutes prior to departure time. End of story. Otherwise the whole thing gets too unwieldy and has too many unknowns. GAs need some minimum amount of time to complete paperwork and get the airplane closed.

cova

Opposite situation yesterday on SLC-IAH flight. FC was Checked in Full.
One no show, but GA did not more anyone up - so 1 empty seat.

Prior to boarding, GA had announced that FC was full, for those on standby to take coach seat.

One guy (who was likely eligible) moved up during flight but FA made him move back.

Scott6067

This is an interesting one. First, the GA probably did look at the computer and noted and the OP that they landed at T-15 and that they would most likely misconnect. I think that the GAs have a feel for who will make it and who will not depending on the situation.

As to the downgrade. I think that the OP has grounds for asking for miles back but since they were booked through and used NWA miles that they will need to go through NWA. I would however suggest that the OP call CO and make sure to have it noted inthe PNR about the delays. The one mistry or complication to this sceniro that we havent seen is the reason the flight was late due to weather. If that is the case then unfortunately the OP may not have crowds but worth the try.

While the suggestion of having the FAs do the upgrades once the plane leaves sounds logical, the problem becomes that the FAs could abuse this policy and thus the reason CO and I presume others have always said that the GA is the one responsible for the upgrades. This makes sense when you think if you got missed for an upgrade and the FA did the upgrade after takeoff and after phones off, how upset you would be for the remainder of the flight stewing in 12B.

sbm12

The OP deserves no miles back IMO. They were late (not their fault, but late nonetheless) to the flight and the seats were given away. At that point they are permitted to get any seats that are available either in F or Y. They could choose to wait for the next flight as a displaced F passenger or take the flight in Y. They chose to take the flight in Y.

IRROPS happen. Without knowing why it happened it is hard to provide too much more information or opinion, but that's where things are right now, IMO.

DiverDave

They were told the next flight was full.

I agree with bmw303. Refunding 12.5K miles per passenger would be the right thing to do.

David

J.Edward

That's a bit harsh, and wrong, IMHO.

b-squared21 and his wife spent the extra mileage to fly in first - on an EasyPass/PerksChoice (or whatever NW brands it as.) This is not someone who's upset about missing an upgrade nor is it a case of someone lucking out and snagging a discount F award. Someone went to the extra expense of rule-busting a seat open and at the end of the day CO dropped the ball -- here's why:I'd argue the purchase of an easy-pass F seat indicates the class of service was of equal importance to b-squared as the actual transport. CO failed to deliver on it and, unsurprisingly, failed to recover when things got a little irregular. As such I'd suggest a 50,000 refund is due per ticket (or two space available - as in it books into F, not A - upgrade certs) are due.

iah12

I think the title of the thread is very misleading. The passengers were not "kicked out of first class". At 5 minutes to go time they were not at the gate, the GA HAD to give their seats away. Very unfortunate, but to honest, they were extremely lucky to even get on the aircraft at all.

sbm12

At most I can see a refund from EasyPass F to EasyPass Y for one way, not a full refund of the ticket for that half the trip (which is what you are advocating).

I agree that the agent could have worked with the customer more to try for other options, but the agent DID do what they are supposed to do. They cleared the seats when they were supposed to. That is what the T-15 rule is there for.

If you are counting on the agent who meets the plane to then call over to the next gate that would require the customer to ask (no way a GA is going to call the gates for all the connecting pax and even then the GA is handling the arriving "specials" before they are dealing with things like connections). But it sounds from the information presented that such a call would still have come in after the seats were cleared. Could CO then go back and remove the upgrade and try to put everything back? Yes. Do they have to? No. And even had the call come in there is no guarantee that the OP would have made it to the gate before the door was closed, so I do not think that the BWI GA should have reversed the upgrade.

So now you've got a customer arriving at the gate late on a paid F ticket (how they paid is irrelevant at this point). What do you do with them? There are no F seats on the later flight (I'll give the GA the benefit of the doubt on that though the OP doesn't want to for reasons that are not particularly clear). So they get Y seats. Would an alternate airport have been acceptable? We don't know. The OP could have asked for that just as easily as the GA could have offered it were it acceptable. I'm betting it would not have been. But it doesn't matter all that much. When you show up at the gate late you are effectively a standby passenger. You can hold out for seats in your ticketed (premium) cabin or you can take seats in Y and fly then. The sense of entitlement that a refund of the ticket is due because of this is insane.

And everything is compounded by the fact that the ticket was paid with using partner miles. That means that any compensation that CO would offer in terms of miles or vouchers would likely be seen as useless to the OP as they aren't a CO customer. I'd be pretty annoyed if the comp I got for a NW trip booked with CO points was NW points.

Suggesting that they get a full refund of one-way of their trip refunded is way over the top. I cannot see how that is justified.

Hartmann

sbm12 what if the tickets were paid for with cash? A pax is paying for transportation in a certain class of service, if that class of service isn't available, is some compensation due?

jrzyshawn

For the 200K miles, two of us are going to London on Virgin Atlantic in Upper Class ^

craz

I would take it say it was a LH tkt FRA-IAH-BWI that CO would so note the record and send the passenger to LH to deal with any refunds or credits. So here too the OP should deal with NW and NW can deal with CO. But since it was a NW tkt CO doesnt owe the OP anything , if CO will owe anybody it will NW

sbm12

Not if the passenger misconnected and agrees to onward transport in a lower class of service rather than a further delay. That's why I suggested above that the payment method didn't really matter. Or the OP could have waited until their purchased CoS was next available. Since it was effectively paid F they'd be at the top of the list, but if things are booked solid then odds are folks are going to want to fly rather than wait and see if a seat eventually opens up.

Now, on a paid ticket the OP could have potentially just refunded the value and used it to buy a similar ticket on an alternate carrier, something that isn't available to a reward ticket holder. But the general concept is the same, IMO.

craz

A ton of assumptions here. I doubt the OP stopped and spent any time with GA at the arrivial gate, had they they probably would have missed the flight altogether.

Seems the OP got themselves ASAP over to the BWI gate and when there found out they were no longer on the flight, since it was T-5 the GA wanted to get the flight out and not hold up the other 150 passengers. Since T-15 already passed then OP was rightfully removed from the flight and their FC seats given to whomever. The OP decided to grab the flight even in coach (I most likely would have do so also).

Now if I book a LAX-EWR-FLL flight and the LAX-EWR clears and the EWR-FLL doesnt I dont get any miles but instead will pay whatever a FC tkt costs in miles and sit in Coach for the EWR-FLL part.

If anything is due it would be what the difference between an EasyPass Coach and FC tkt would be (or 1/2 of the total miles since they flew FC BWI-ONT already) and 1/2 of the 1/2 or 1/4 so if its 100 EP FC and say 50 EP Y that = 50k EP FC 1 way then divide that by 2 (2 segments) = 25k per segment but coach EP would have been 12.5 so that leaves 12.5 as a so called over charge, since they did fly CO in coach that shouldnt be free.

But this 12.5 max is what NW owes the OP and not what CO owes the OP, CO doesnt owe the OP anything. Then its between NW and CO if CO has to credit NW anything

eg I purchase a FRA-IAH-BWI tkt on LH and the IAH-BWI seg I end up in Coach, Co doesnt owe me any $$ I never paid them anything, I paid LH and its LH that I should be looking to for a refund/credit. In turn LH will turn to CO.

So too the OP should be turning to whom they paid the tkt to, in their case NW

craz

Yep but didnt the OP said they told the other flights were also not available in FC that day