Hello!

I'm curious as to what possibly occurred with my check-in process, and the telephone reservation could not clarify the situation for me. I thought I'd see if y'all have any experience with this!

My plane ticket on Frontier was purchased for me. It was Economy class. During online check-in I saw that exit row seats were available. I changed my seat to an exit row. It provided the standard confirmation of ability to perform emergency duties, etc. No mention of any other change or issue. Completed check-in, and my boarding pass is listed as Classic Plus.

I am concerned that I might have upgraded the ticket or used the purchaser's points by switching to an exit row seat. I called the airline's reservation service and they stated that nothing of that sort happened - but the woman was surprisingly rude/abrupt and unhelpful, unfortunately. She did/would/could not clarify why the ticket was switched from Economy to Classic Plus.

I'm curious as to whether anyone has encountered this before with Frontier. I'd like to hear that it's just a normal occurrence for exit row seats!

Thanks!

That happens routinely on F9. When there is an aircraft change, or the exit row # changes, passengers are randomly reassigned seats by the computer. It starts with row 1 and moves back, so you were assigned a "stretch" seat at no additional cost. Some stations will manually reassign you if you aren't entitled to it, but most won't.

If one leg of your trip was Classic Plus, even the second leg of a connection, you will be classified as Classic Plus for the whole ticket.

Once a fare bucket is purchased on Frontier (Classic Plus, Classic, Economny) there's no way to buy-up to a higher fare level, neither with dollars nor points. So nothing you did could have forced a charge (dollars or points) for an upgrade to Classic Plus. (As a matter of fact, I think the ability to buy-up to a higher level is something that should exist as an option, but it does not.)

The only sort of upgrade possible after purchase is to move up to a Stretch seat. However (1) that is pretty clearly defined as an additional charge you must deliberately pay for (2) chosing exit row is not Stretch, and (3) even if you had upgraded to Strech (which you did not because exit row is not Stretch), it does not change your ticket to classic plus.

So what happened? I'd guess that the fare class purchased (I don't mean classic plus/classic/economy, but industry-standard fare bucket like Y, B, M, K, Q, or V) automatically qualified you for classic plus even though you were booked at the lowest fare level available. In some instances...either when the advance purchase time is short or when something quirky is going on...the classic plus fare is equal to (or I've even seen less than) the economy fare.

Bottom line is, however, becuase there's no mechanism by which you could do a paid upgrade from economy to classic plus, either with miles or dollars, I don't think there's any risk that your selecting an exit row seat lead to any additional charges.

Thanks for the input! I appreciate the confirmation.

Have a good day!