seating
 

the bigger issue here, IMHO is that when upgraded from say EXIT ROW to F, that would seem to be okay (for a guy like me at 6'5") other than maybe bulkhead F in some aircraft. When the DOWNGRADE indeed occurs, often times there is NO LONGER any EXIT row seating, and one can find themselves no only in E+ middle, but also in the back in the middle, etc. that just does NOT work for me, I simply can't fit in the read of the E- cabin. The system doesn't take ANY of that into account and I'm often split from my companion when downgraded and both of us put in the back - AS IF we are simply LUCKY to have a seat at all, having gone from E+ exit to F and then should be happy to just be on the plane after downgraded. This is just a FAIL!

paid an M-fare to get the 1k auto upgrade, but when i boarded, the seat had a belt around it that read "do not occupy"...

trucked back to the gate and had to wait until plane was fully loaded...they did get me a seat in Y...

strange thing was as soon as i sat down, I got an email with a NEW boarding pass to a seat that was already occupied in 1st...

odd...will be interesting to see if there is any compensation...i didn't say much except, "maybe someone shoulda said something to the gate??"...guessing i woulda been cleared before the standby list...or it seems i may have been and they ignored it...what you guys think?

Yes, you're entitled to compensation. GG OVS DOWNGRADE is the profile.

As for noting it to the gate, I wonder if SHARES can handle blocking an INOP seat.

Downgrade from F to Y - No Partial Refund?
 

I posted this in another similar thread and got no response, so I figured it was worthy of its own.

I was on a paid F ticket (P fare) and stood by for an earlier flight. I assumed I was standing by for F and there was F available at the time. At the gate when they called me the GA said they cleared all upgrades before working the standby list, so he would have to clear me into Y. I asked if I would get a refund for the difference and he said I would, but I would have to call after I flew to request it, so I reluctantly accepted and took my rear E- middle just to get home a few hours early.

After sitting on board for a bit, a different GA came on board (I thought he was coming move me back to F) and went up to another passenger and told him there was a no-show so his upgrade came through. I was a bit irked as I was on a paid F ticket, sitting in Y, and people who paid for Y (I assume) were getting upgraded.

Long story short, I called after landing and asked for a refund of the fare difference. After a long hold, I was told that I paid for P and was re-booked in Y, and that the Y fare I flew in was more expensive and that I actually owed them a balance. When I protested, they said they already spoke to their supervisor and they are willing to waive the difference and not charge me, but they can’t refund anything. I then e-mailed, explained the story, and requested any of the following:

A. The fare difference between what was available at the time I bought and P; or
B. The average difference back based on paid load; or
C. 1 RPU and no money back.

They replied and said they would give me 10,000 miles as the upgrade list was processed incorrectly, but they could not give me a refund.

I was and still am irked. Is this normal SoP for the new UA? Is there anything else I can do short of disputing the charge?

Delta did this to me too. I paid A fare and tried to get out on an earlier flight. The GA told me it automatically put me back in coach, but I was the first person on the upgrade list, so I would get the upgrade. Had I not gotten the upgrade, I would have just opted to stay on my regular flight. I was told I would not get a refund for paying an A fare and riding in coach on another flight. Unfortunately, that is the way the airlines are nowdays unless you buy a full F fare.

A P fare is the equivalent to a Y-Up fare. So are you not owed any money since Y>P in cost. You should have been on the FFCC list.

It's not new, as far as I know. Upgrades are processed first, then standby passengers. You volunteered to go standby on an earlier flight, and you accepted the standby flight knowing that no first seats were available. They don't refund for this. The GA misinformed you.

Once on-board, I believe that last minute upgrade should have been processed based on standard upgrade priority.

Virgin America did it to me too! Due to weather and a connection, I couldn't make my original flight where I had booked a paid F seat. The next flight had F available, but they said I would have to pay the fare difference! So I chose a seat in Y and took my $30 refund. (the difference between my advance purchase F and a last minute Y seat)

Just mentioning this so that you know that all airlines can screw up in this way :)

Downgrade Priority (or lack thereof)
 

While I suppose I could sit and rant about this, this post is more meant to be informative and I guess is also a request for clarification to see if what happened is what was supposed to happen.

Myself and a Colleague were on UA 221 from ORD-YVR yesterday. Both of us are 1k, both of us were on M Fare Economy tickets that we upgraded at point of purchase.

At the gate, our names were called and they told us we were being downgraded to economy as they were oversold by 2. This was a A319 with only 8 F seats.

Only 3 of the 10 passengers (only 9 showed at boarding) had elite status with UA. As I knew this, I asked the agent why they chose the two 1k's to be the downgraded over non elite flyers. The agent pulls up a list of what each person paid for their ticket, and everyone in the cabin ad paid more or less 2000 for their tickets, while we had only spent about 600 as we bought M Fares. She said that revenue trumped Status.

I told her that the M Fare was offered as a perk to 1k fliers as a means into F Class, then I also told her that the F Fare at the time of us booking was only about 890 or so, and did that mean that had we bought the F fare instead of the M Fare, that we would still be the ones downgraded, which she confirmed was the case.

1. Is that the correct downgrade order

It seems a really poor choice of business to put your top frequent flyers at the bottom of your list.

We were offered zero compensation due to the fact that we did in fact only pay for economy tickets. I told her that the economy cheapest fare at time of purchase was just over 200 dollars, and if I wanted economy, I would have paid that fare instead of the instant upgrade fare.

In the end, one person no showed, I gave my colleague the F seat, and sat in E (not e+)

In general, UA are good to me, I rarely have any problems, so I didn't light up the boarding gate with threats and arguments, and as I was boarding, the supervisor came up and gave me a $400 certificate and apologized.

Was this the way it should be handled ?

I don't know what the ordering is or should be, but I'm pretty sure they should have offered you compensation right from the start - I've heard references around to 'GG OVS DOWNGRADE' being the internal policy they should be following for downgrading anyone who was confirmed in a business or first class of service. I have no personal experience with it though; my most recent downgrade was before the merger and UA gave me much less than I hear I would have received after the merger.

If they were all paid F then yes, you are the ones downgraded. You paid for economy and upgraded to F. An M fare with instant upgrade is not an F fare. Your instant upgrade is still space available.

As for if you had actually paid the F fare then I don't know but I would assume they would go by fare paid and status within that fare paid which is basically what the GA said.

So, sorry but the GA was correct in this case if in fact the others were paid F.

I think you may have been slightly over-compensated.

I've read an old, possibly out of date version of GG OVS DOWNGRADE which says that "The ETC is based on the distance between the origin and destination of the oversold segment" and lists $250 for the distance 1000–2001 miles. ORD-YVR is about 1750.

1) A rhetorical question. Given your FT handle, I am assuming you are a dependant of a CO employee. If this is true, what does your sponsoring employee say? Do they say that a 1k on a discounted F ticket at $600 should trump a straight F fare at $2000, especially when not knowing the elite status of those passengers of full F that paid over 3x your ticket price?

2) I doubt the agent was prioritizing you in inverse status order and putting the best at the bottom of the list.

What was the reason for the oversale? I've seen IT glitches on plane swaps and schedule changes that overbook a narrowbody F flight, but they are rare. Yesterday was a Sat afternoon. Usually a slow day (at least at ORD) It surprises me that an entire cabin would be filled 100% with revenue, 75% at full fare and 2 at a good fare. This market must be rocking. Do you fly this route on this day of week often, if so, is it usually like this, or was it an anomoly due to a convention or something?

Sorry for your bad luck. It isn't always the situation that hurts the most...life hands us lemons. How they handle it makes a world of difference. I can't believe they weren't goin to offer you any compensation at all. Were they rude as well, as that would just be insult to injury. And for the full F to be $890, and then it increase to over $2000...that is just some crazy pricing. Full F is usually a very constant thing. I haven't ever seen a variation of over 100% in full F before. Did you purchace it bfore the CO and UA merged and maybe the person responsible for pricing this market hasbeen replaced by an employee for the other company? If so, I would assume it would have been a legacy UA person being replaced by a legacy CO pricer, and traditionally, UA full F was much higher than CO, so this would be very paradoxical.

You have piqued my curiosity!

As for sitting in economy vs E+, was there E+ available, when the plane left, or in orderto get you that, would they have had to dis-service another passenger additionally?

Well, I commend you. Really, life is so much better when we try to make the best of bad situations that are out of our sphere of control. I've had to downgrade people in my day...it is most likely just as unpleasant for the gate agent as it is for the pasenger...there is no easy way to do it and even though the agent isn't the one who made the cabin too full, they feel (at least I do) very guilty about it. Rolling with the punches is hard to do, but I am glad that it helped you out.

Save the travel credits for the CO (UA) employee when they need to get home from a NRSA trip that they can't get on! I know I would appreciate it if I was your NRSA friend!