Forfeiting Extra Comfort $$
 

Last year, I bought tickets to Hawaii. 2 x Extra Comfort Seats.
Cancelled due to covid obviously.
Before I cancelled, they scheduled changed on me anyway and said I could rebook within a year.

Fast forward to now... we have a little infant. We only fly first now.
I called to rebook the seats and they told me to book first, we have to forfeit the $89 payment per person from extra comfort.

This wasn't an upgrade we bought after we bought the economy seats.
We bought them originally as extra comfort seats. And they scheduled changed on US!
This is seriously the worst airline if this scenario is true. I've talked to three people and they all confirm this policy.
How does this make sense?

Welcome to Hawaiian!

If they cancelled the flight - you were entitled to a refund. That may be difficult to pursue at this point but you could give it a shot.

• Extra Comfort Seat purchases are non-refundable.
• Customers who have purchased an Extra Comfort Seat and voluntarily make changes to their reservation or seat are not eligible for a refund. However, if an Extra Comfort Seat is available on the new flight, the customer may secure the Extra Comfort Seat using the original form of payment.
• Customers who have purchased an Extra Comfort Seat and elect to change to a non-Extra Comfort Seat on the same flight will not be entitled to a refund of the original Extra Comfort Seat purchase.
• Customers who have purchased an Extra Comfort Seat that are impacted by a Hawaiian Airlines initiated flight and seat change, equipment change, routing change, or flight cancellation are eligible for a refund if Hawaiian Airlines is unable to accommodate the customer in another Extra Comfort Seat. The refund will be initiated by Hawaiian Airlines on the customer’s behalf.

See my post from today. Similar experience. These "policies" are outrageous and borderline if not outright fraud!

Besides being obnoxious, the refusal to refund or credit extra comfort seat fees when the passenger wants to buy up to first is just plain dumb. I never went to business school, but I kinda thought that customers wanting to trade up to the much more expensive version of your product was generally considered a good thing. Apparently HA wants to hang on to $89 even if it costs them first-class ticket sales and permanently pisses off someone who's willing to pay for some now and might have been good for more in the future.