I didn't get my SWU on my 11.5 hr MAD-DFW flight but the agent blocked center and gave me the aisle seat in the middle row in the "small" cabin. 20 minutes into boarding the plane is filling but I still have the whole row so I lay a half empty coke can on the other aisle seat. 2 minutes later daughter and mom show up from the back scoping my territory at about the time there's no more boarding. Given the fact that she came from the back I challenged her, saying that the pax left their coke and went to the toilet. She left, without much more fuss and I had the whole row. Given the fact that I didn't have to use an upgrade, I had a truly lie flat seat, DC for my IPAD (better than the Samsung selection, I don't think I saw games on those TABS) and a few comped drinks.

Would you use an SWU for a 3 or 5 seat center row?

1. What is a center row?
2. I can't imagine not upgrading a 3-hour flight if possible, let alone an 11-hour one. Are you kidding?
3. Whether or not "blocked" (there is no official blocking on AA now anyway), any seat in one's ticketed cabin is fair game once the boarding door is closed. Personally, I would not be comfortable with lying about the fact that the seats were unoccupied. YMMV.

I think that crossed one of those socially unacceptable lines. On the other hand when I flew domestic coach and a flight was going to have a light load I would switch my seat assignment from window to aisle. I'm relatively large and can appear distempered, no middle seat refugees ever asked to squeeze by me to get to the unoccupied window.

Three Y seats on a 757 or 738 make a decent bunk, but the food in J/F is much better. I don't think I'd burn a SWU on that flight, but I would definitely take a free upgrade.

On lightly loaded flights to/from Japan years ago, the five seat across flat bed in the back of the plane was a decent alternative to biz.

Ok. I know what you are talking about here.
You are talking about taking the whole row of middle seats on a 777 or 763.
777 is 2-5-2 and 763 is a 2-3-2 in Y.

I did it on a very empty flight CDG-DFW two weeks before Xmas a few years ago on a 763. I tucked in the seatbelts, lifted the armrests and had my little own bed. I am 6'. It was not bad at all and slept soundly for 5 hours.

Is it better than J? I do not think so.

I would consider not burning a SWU for a day flight coming back from Europe if I am trying to save my SWUs for something else AND depending on how full I expect the flight to be.

Now, there is no guarantee, even on an empty flight that you will be able to score an empty middle row for yourself. It's tougher on a 777, easier on a 763. The new preferred seats scheme makes it even more difficult, since all the aisle seats in the back (the only ones free of charge) are promptly taken.

I can sleep like a baby on 3 across, and have done it on single aisle planes where having the aisle seat effectively precludes anyone from reseating themselves into the window after boarding completed. Trying to do this in the center section of a widebody is difficult for the reasons noted.

But I wouldn't forego the opportunity to upgrade.

Well actually I would not have the nerve to deny anyone else a seat to which they had as much entitlement as you did - "from the back" to me means that they came from another class of service not from behind you happen to be sitting.

What would you have said had she returned complete with a Flight Attendant after take off, and taken the issue further? That could have been really embarrassing for you as you would have been confronted with this.

To answer your question - I would have used the SWU and had Mom and daughter crossed up from the behind the curtain then I would have summoned a FA to deal with them.

I would not be 100% sure that mom and daughter were ENTITLED to move the front of the Y cabin because most of the seats in the front Y cabin are "preferred seats" i.e. you have to pay for them unless you are elite.

There is another thread here where it has been reported that FA's have made passengers move for taking empty preferred seats. SO, I think that, maybe, mom and daughter would have been the ones to be embarrassed. Not the OP.

This is AA (seats are assigned) not WN (take any seat you want).

I have found the best course is to sit in the middle seat and spread my stuff out a bit when boarding. That way, if the plane is not full to the gills nobody actively wants to sit next to someone, and you already 'own' one of those aisle seats anyway, just in case someone tries to sit in it.

I've done that on a couple of occasions and even the person ticketed in the other aisle has left in search of another seat just before doors closed because they were 'sitting next to someone'.

Ah you are relying on rational choice theory- which as we see here every day is by no means a sure thing.

Wrong.

Generally it's the adult who gets caught in a frivolous lie about an imaginary friend who gets embarrassed, not a mother asking for a chance to sit with her daughter, even if she isn't technically entitled to do so.

Bingo!

(Unless, of course, one views the liar as more entitled to the seat in some way.)

Cheers.

I am confused now. This makes it sound like mother and daugher were not able to sit together?

I do not think that was the case. IT seems mother AND daughter were in the back of the plane and were trying to sit in the front rows (but the "lie" impeded it).

I had the whole 3-seat center row on EZE-DFW on the 763 a while back. I couldn't really get that comfortable - specifically because the FA "strongly encouraged me" to fasten my seat belt so she could see it, ha.

I would much rather have a J seat. Now, if the J seat was, e.g., $4K R/T and the center seat was $1K... I would have to think about that.