Stygian7

The most chaotic boarding process I’ve ever been involved in. PEK-DTW Sept. 27, 2019.

I don’t know all the details here, but my experience was an exercise in frustration. Fortunately, it all worked out well for me, so can’t complain too much.

Waitlisted GUC on this flight. Headed to the airport, things weren’t looking good. I was 2 of 6 for 1 upgrade seat. Had all but resigned myself to 12 hours in the back. Cleared immigration and security and headed to the gate. One last check on the app and suddenly, I show upgraded to 3A....nice! Make my way to the gate, board and settle into my D1 seat. As I’m finishing PDB, someone (I think from the gate) shows up and tells me my new seat is 31A. Of course I’m disappointed, but not about to fight over anything. I collect my belongings and before head back. As I’m approaching the rear of the biz class, one of the flight crew asks if I received my amenity kit. I explained that I had, but had been instructed to change seats. Flight crew was confused and asked who told me to do so. They told me to hang tight for a few minutes, so I stood there near with my carry-on. We are now at T-20 to the original departure time and beyond the updated departure time that I received via email update shortly before the flight. I checked the app and still showing upgraded. A few minutes passed and the person that told me to go back to coach arrives and says my seat is 31A. There are now 4 remaining open seats and nobody seams to be boarding; we are at T-15. I show him my phone and ask why it still shows upgraded; my concern is that the GUC has been effectively burned at this point and I won’t get it back. He says that won’t be a problem and that I just need to call the diamond line at the completion of the flight and they will reissue the GUC. I fairly certain that wouldn’t happen as the system still shows me sitting in 3A. At this point, I’m politely stalling a bit since we are beyond the T-15 cut-off of the original scheduled departure and 4 seats remain open. I figure once I go to the back, there’s a better chance the seat will go out empty than me moving up front again. I’m really not sure what to do at this point, but I requested that my seat be updated in the system so that it doesn’t show me sitting in the D1; at least then I figured I’d be able to recover the GUC. The agent is becoming frustrated and takes my bag back to 31A. I ask the flight crew what I should do and who would be in charge of fixing the seat issue on my boarding pass. They didn’t have a good answer for me, but said to continue to wait where I was because there were multiple D1 seats open. Front D1 boarding door has now been closed and still 4 seats open. The agent returns from putting my back in 31A. I ask him one final time about my seat assignment and why I still show upgraded. I have multiple screenshots now, showing “updated 6 seconds ago” and the like with the current time displayed. Not sure what good it would have done, but...

as I'm showing him the app and my seat assignment, he gets on his two-way, then abruptly tells me to go back to 3A. He said something to the effect of those three people bought their ticket with miles, so they can’t come. That made no sense to me. I went to my seat, settled in again and hoped this wouldn’t reverse again. Checked the app and now 5 of us were upgraded, my spot being #2.

During this whole process, I did notice two individuals board, taking 2 of the 4 seats. Shortly after boarding, they deplaned. I spoke with another D1 passenger near the baggage claim in DTW. She told me that the two that deplaned were a mother and her son. After they boarded, the woman said to her son that they had to get off because the father hadn’t been cleared to leave China.

In the end, I was where I hoped to be and the flight crew was great. I received multiple apologies even though I knew it had nothing to do with them. I still don’t understand why I was asked to move; three, presumably paid fares ended up not flying, but I ended up 2 of 5 upgrades, so even if they flew, it shouldn’t have affected my upgrade.

Whats the point of this ridiculously long post? Well, I never anticipated I would be in this position and wasn’t sure how to handle it. Ultimately, I wasn’t about to fight with the agent telling me to move and would have sat where I was told. I did stall a bit, but was advised to hold tight by the biz class cabin crew. I was also legitimately concerned about the GUC being burned and envisioned a futile effort to recover it. Did I handle this well? I understand that things can change, but when you hit T-15, shouldn’t the upgrade be set in stone? The whole experience was chaotic and confusing. This was the first time I had risked waitlisting...I likely won’t do it again.

Mister Nice

Happy you ended up in the front cabin. Not sure what happened but you should write a concise description of what occurred and send it to DL customer service folks .

MSPeconomist

It could have been a GA trying to use your D1 seat for a nonrev friend. The way D1 FAs told you to stay and the unwillingness to give you a new coach boarding pass seem suspicious to me.

Also, where was your original coach seat? Was it better or worse than 31A would have been?

Zorak

I have a couple points of curiosity/clarification:

- Did you get a new boarding slip showing 3A on it at the gate?
- Who was the person telling you to take 31A -- an employee in uniform? I think I would have insisted on them handing me a paper BP for 31A before I move -- it seems to me that that process would at least create an electronic audit trail of the downgrade and who did it, which could be investigated later.

hotturnip

I think your strategy was smart. You basically accepted the seat assignment, so they couldn't claim you were being disruptive or uncooperative. You focused on, "let's get the paperwork straight right now, or otherwise I'l lose my GUC." That's reasonable and should be understandable even to rushed cabin crew.

Bravo.

quitecryptic

Seems like you handled it fine to me, it's reasonable to want to see it updated in the system or a new boarding pass at least to ensure you will be able to get the GUC back

WillBarrett_68

theoretically possible but extremely unlikely. If this is what was going on he would not have advised the OP to call the diamond line after the flight to get the GUC reissued since that would have basically been telling on himself.

I know some people think shena is hiding behind every tree but this aint it

aubreyfromwheaton

Shena until proven otherwise

Stygian7

I’m not going to make a complaint though I will summarize very briefly in the post flight email survey. I don’t think a complaint would do much good; I suppose they *might* throw some SkyMiles at me, but probably not and I’m nearing 2MM banked anyway.

31A was my original seat. When I arrived to board, I saw the readout state that a new seat assignment had been given and I saw that it said 3A as the app did. Unlike in all the other upgrades I have received where printed BP doesn’t match (and the machine spits out a slip with the new seat assignment), I didn’t see anything print. The agent scribbled out 31A and wrote 3A on my paper bp. I already had the screenshot showing the upgrade as I’ve taken to making that standard practice, so I wasn’t too concerned about getting a new paper bp.

The person trying to move me was in uniform; I think he always a gate agent, but he was not the one that scanned my pass when I boarded.

i don’t think Shena were at play here. The agent trying to move me seemed flustered. My suspicion is that the family of three that didn’t fly hadn’t checked in by the 60 minute check in window. Upgrade cleared and then somehow at T-30 or so someone manually checked them in. If this happened, it would have created a mess for the gate agent to deal with. Still doesn’t explain why I was asked to move, given 4 seats open, but maybe his count was off. Don’t know and I’m sure I never will. I’m just happy I ended up in the front.

JakeRobertson212

“The agent is becoming frustrated and takes my bag back to 31A.”

This is concerning to me. What agent has a right to touch your stuff and move it when you’ve got a seat for 3A and are doing nothing wrong. You really need to report that please.

1P

And did you get your bag back, or did you have to go get it yourself?

I suspect that the agent misread 3A as 31A and then couldn't admit that he had made a mistake.

MSPeconomist

Note that 31A was the OP's original seat too, before he/she was upgraded to 3A. It's almost unusual that the original seat is still available when someone's upgrade is revoked.

However, another possible scenario is that when the agent saw the 31A scribbled out and replaced by 3A, the agent assumed that the passenger (the OP) had done it as an attempt to get a "self upgrade."

jrl767

OP stated that, while waiting at the back of D1 between ~T-20 and ~T-15, nobody else appeared to be boarding ... to my mind it’s highly unlikely that the GA had reassigned a coach passenger’s seat ... esp since OP also mentioned being notified that departure time had been promoted by ~20 min

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSPeconomist

However, another possible scenario is that when the agent saw the 31A scribbled out and replaced by 3A, the agent assumed that the passenger (the OP) had done it as an attempt to get a "self upgrade."

OP also stated the electronic BP showed 3A

NotHamSarnie

Bizarre. Could the original upgrade have resulted from the condition in which the Chinese person was denied boarding? i.e., an agent thought it unlikely this person could fly, upgraded the OP, then the situation appeared to change allowing the Chinese person to fly, resulting in the kerfuffle that saw the OP downgraded, and then finally the entire family leaving because of the IDB?

OHDL1

Oh....I see...the infamous "guilty until proven (beyond a shadow of a doubt...) innocent".