Non UA *G/*S experiences with getting E+
 

Thought this might be an interesting thread since officially non UA*G and *S members shouldn't get E+. I took my first few flights in UA Y over the weekend since this was introduced and did pretty well.

Personally I think that UA have made the E+ cabins too big with not enough premium fare/UA *S*Gs or E+ Access people to fill it. The E- cabin oversells and people end up getting rolled over.

OK, my stats from the weekend.

Ticket puchased: L class
Status: *G
Upsell price: $64 for ORD-OAK and v.v.

ORD-DEN - 777 - No E+ available but was given 30A by the check-in agent at RIC, the emergency exit row seat ^ She was unable to see about the DEN flight, as were the ORD folks.
DEN-OAK - 757 - Managed to snag 9A in E+ at the RCC about an hour before departure ^
OAK-DEN - 737 - Useless check-in people at OAK :mad: When I got to the gate the GA said she had already paged me and upgraded me on both flights ^ E+ aisle seat (6D) but the windowless row :(
DEN-ORD - 757 - Moved by the OAK GA to 10D.

I booked these tickets about 2 weeks before I flew and had middle seats in E- on all the above flights. The ORD-DEN flight

I'm interested to see if I just got lucky or if this is standard practice for *A elites nowadays.

Took two domestic UA flights since the changes took effect and got E+ seating assigned both times without asking for it. Initial booking only had E- seat assignments.

I had 3 experiences on the same trip. On every single one, including one where I lost my (very) pre-booked E+ seat due to a misconnect (NOT my fault), I got stuck in E-, even though in every case there were E+ seats available. I asked every time to be moved forward when getting my BP and was told no.

Dr. PITUK.

I guess that it's vaguely related, but for my 2 US trips this year I won't be flying UA, based on last trip's horrible CS experience. E+ was bearable, but E- just isn't going to happen for me. I've also paid 2 full ($6k+) J fares in the last 18 months, not that it makes any difference.

Dr. PITUK

Did UA pre-select E- for you despite your status (preferential seating is supposed to be a *G benefit), or was there nothing else available at time of booking?

Errrr ;)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=599665

Of the 6 flights in total, I managed to get pre-assigned seats on 5/6, the only one missing being the ORD-DEN flight. All the rest were pretty bad middle E- seats as per the new policy.

No it's not. See http://www.staralliance.com/en/trave...er_status.html

I am aware that *G no longer get E+ but was more interested that you got middle seats in E- and wondering why.

Ah so it isnt. Guess I have been lucky so far. In hundreds of flights I have always gotten priority seating, even when UA bumped someone off a flight minutes before boarding so I that wouldn't get stranded for my following connecting flight I still got an exit row seat.

Ah, gotcha! At the time of booking I didn't have my *G number in there, plus nothing else was available. Once I called UA with the *G number they couldn't give me anything different anyway.

Phew. For a moment there I thought UA may be introducing a new policy to give non-UA *G the worst seats.

It seems to me, that what is happening is that UA is overselling E- and are then forced to op-up people into E+.
I would like to think that they would be more inclined to move a *G or even *S into E+ than some non-status flyer.

It is unlikely that you will be able to get an E+ seat before day of travel, but certainly it never hurts to ask at the gate - the worst thing they can say is "no."

I give my M+ number to reservations in order to get the Y+ seat assignment. However, it seems I have to wait until I'm checked in before I can switch the FF number to whichever program to which I want to accrue miles -- else I lose my seat assignment. Then the agent gives me grief and tells me that I should have used that number when I made the reservation. :td:

As a * Silver I checked in at the self service check in at LHR on route to SFO last week, and was given a BP saying seat assignment at gate. Got that sinking feeling.

Finally at the gate I was given the center seat, in E+. Not amused.

Self-service check-in as a non-UA *Gold is what I dislike, for it means no E+ unless later getting manual intervention by a UA agent/RCC lounge agent elsewhere, which, in turn, means hoping that decent seats are still left at that point.

It's rather disappointing that UA's systems don't recognize the value of non-UA *Golds, particularly those non-UA *Golds who fly UA more than enough to be UA 2P, 1P or 1K elites if they were to choose to use UA's program. Fortunately, UA's agents are generally more than willing to put me into E+. (The problem is when checking in at a station where UA doesn't have flights getting E+ isn't an option until arrival at an airport from which UA departs.)

I have noticed that on my Econ+ flights it's not been too hard for people in the forward rows of Economy to jump into Economy Plus on the longer-haul flights.