Equipment change - how are seats reassigned?
 

I was booked from LAX to NRT on an old triple 7 ( 2-5-2 )in the coveted seat 21 H, right past the crew rest area with unlimited legroom, happy camper. Because I am paranoid about where I sit, I check my itinerary more than once on a daily basis and find out today that the equipment has changed to a new configuration type triple 7 ( 3-3-3 ). I have been reseated in 30 J, middleseat in E+ last row. Is there a computer who reassigns seats without rhyme or reason? My profile obviously states aisle seat preferred. There were plenty of aisle seats left, I reseated myself and picked an aisle seat, but every time I open the seatmap I've been put back in my middleseat :mad:

To answer your question, the best anybody can figure is that UA tends to reassign as few people as possible. In other words, only those people affected by the change. Once that happens, you get the next best seat in your ticketed cabin (including E+ if you are originally in E+).

Check the seat map to see what's left, may well be that keeping you in E+ means a middle. You then have the tough decision as to whether a better location in E- is better than a lousy seat in E+ (presuming that there's anything left in E-).

Next best is get to LAX super early and beg at the counter, Club and gate. Forget the "I got bumped with the plane change" and just ask. With an equpt change there will be lots of people ranting at GA, so the nice guy is more likely to get his way.

Check daily - then twice a day 5 days from departure when upgrades/waitlist will start to clear!

Try doing a dummy booking and seeing which seats are actually available -- it may be that your pick did stick, but the website is out of sync.

There was another thread somewhere where somebody had a similar issue, and the story (IIRC) was that the seat reselection had taken hold, but that there were actually two different places that the seat assignment could be read from, and the website was grabbing from the wrong (stale) one...

As much as I love 21H on the old configuration, I stopped selecting it once the new configs started appearing in decent numbers. For the past year, I picked a seat that existed and was decent in both configs.

It is my opinion that UA has contracted the same monkey who throws darts to predict stock market performance to do seat reassignments on plane changes:

http://www.financialabundanceinc.com/node/400

At least that has been my experience for as long as I have been flying UA.

Unfortunately the stress of the merger has caused said monkey to take up smoking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DndWHW6pmc

Poor thing is gonna get lung cancer :(

Happy to report that this upon checking this morning my new seat assignment sticks. Could have been the glitch you are mentioning yesterday.
Takes a big load off my shouldera as I am paranoid with seat ssignments.

I got burned now twice, two weeks ago on a trip to BRU I picked seat 20J, this flight switched equipment to the old version, so we were reseated in a regular row. Now this time the old version has been switched to the new one and I lost my good seat again. By the way how do you pick a seat that is decent in both configurations?

21C through 26C, 21G through 26G, and 21H through 26H - aisle seat on all configurations in E+

In C - 8B, 8C, 8G, 8H, 9B, 9C, 9G, 9H aisle seats in all configurations.

Thanks^

Yep - this sucks United.....!

I was in an aisle E+ on a 2-5-2 777. It then went to a 3-3-3 777 a few days ago - reassigned to an aisle E+. Check in last night, all is good. Check flight status today, back to a 2-5-2, and I'm now in a middle, no aisles available.

So it appears, changes one way are made to similar seats, but the other way around many people are probably getting screwed.

This just happened to me today as well. I'm LIVID. Stuck in a center seat. I'm not taking this sitting down so to speak.

Happened to me when I was out of touch from the Internet for a few days -- switched from a 2-5-2 777 to a 3-3-3 777, and went from a E+ window to an E- middle.

Luckily, when I was doing OLCI, I caught it, and was able to claim an E+ window (whew!).

So it doesn't appear to match like-kind seats, but your guesses are as good as mine.

Makes one want to avoid the 777 situation to Asia with the constant equipment changes. But the E+ seat in the 747 is so horrible, there are not many options.

Changed Aircraft - Randomly Assigned Seats
 

About two months ago I booked a TATL trip, with the two actual TATL segments being on a 767-400. I just discovered today that all of the 767-400s on these routes have been changed to 767-200s. They reassigned me to random seats (moved me from middle single to one of the doubles on either side). One of the reasons I used miles to book this trip was to be able to lay down and sleep. I've looked and it appears that the Business First seats are not lay flats. Can anyone confirm that? Also, do I have any kind of recourse here? Not looking for a freebie or anything. But I booked this trip based on the seating and it changed. I don't know what to do, pretty frustrated here.

A bit misleading. Seats weren't randomly reassigned in your case. The plane configuration differs.

You can:

1. Call in and change the flight.

Happens all the time when equipment changes and the configuration is different. Same thing is happening right now to many people whose flights are changed from a 787 to 777, for example, LAX --> NRT.

Actually, I was randomly reassigned seats. Booked middle single aisle and they put me in one of the doubles. BF seats on both planes are 2 1 2.

You care more about the seat (lie-flat) than the location.

Suggest you follow my first post advice when you call in, and drop the 'reassigned seat' issue - your main concern is the seat type.

I had this happen in 2012 on an A319 --> A320 in DEN and an old 777 --> new 777 in ORD. Unlike pmUA, the new United takes no accountability for bad outcomes from seat changes, and I'm 1K. I was wondering if they did it by status but I doubt it. When this happened on pre-merger UA, they deposited 9,000 miles into my account without me requesting it. Classy airline then - Continental (now running the show) is cheap and short-sighted, only focused on short term revenue, and forget about calling the socalled "Premier" line.

Seats are reassigned just like the logo on the tails of all of their planes indicate ---

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...PUBMAw&dur=501

The 762 BF seats are ancient, early 1990s era stuff. They look and feel like they've been through hell.
See if they'll reroute you on something resembling modern.