FlyerTalk Forums - Adventures in plane swaps and a downgrade

My son and I were flying DEN-GRR yesterday and 48 hours before the flight, F was showing F9 and R5 with no seats assigned pn an A319. No CPU for us :(. Then, about 36 hours before the flight, we got our CPU :D and the plane now showed as an A320 with us in 3E and 3F. I was a bit concerned that the seatmap on united.com showed the correct seatmap for a 320, but said the flight was on a 319, as well as being in the third row - always a danger in the case of a plane swap. Even better, our 2 person PNR managed to actually generate mobile boarding passes :cool:. Unfortunately, that was the end of the good news. I woke up yesterday morning and the mobile boarding passes now showed that I was in 1B and my son did not have a seat assigned. A quick check of the seatmap now showed a 319 :eek:

Of course, I immediately called reservations and was told that my son (who is 2 years old and no status) did not have a seat (duh, that's why I called). The agent did not seem to understand my concern over this, so I hung up and called again. The next agent was very nice, but said that the flight was under airport control, so I had to just show up and get it fixed there

We got to the airport and checked bags -the agent at check-in tells us we have to go to the gate and prints new boarding passes. This is where things really start to go haywire. The new BPs have my son (again, 2 years old and no status) sitting in 1B and my BP is just a security card as I apparently don't have a seat on the oversold plane :mad:. Even worse, my BP doesn't have a barcode so no PreCheck (luckily I still had our F boarding passes that I printed at home in my pocket).

At the gate, the agent was fantastic- he got us seats together in coach and some lucky premier got a battlefield upgrade to 1B. Even more amazing, the agent then proceeded to print out $250 downgrade certs for us.:D (while complaining about SHARES and how complicated the system was).

The amazing part of this is just how screwed up the system that deals with plane swaps is. Not only did it somehow swap my son and I (the reservation showed me in 1B, but the boarding passes had my son in 1B), but it also split a 2year old (in his FF profile as well as having a title of MSTR which a PMCO phone agent assured me would prevent this exact situation) from the adult who was traveling with him.

In the end, the gate agent did a great job of fixing the situation and handling a fairly worked up parent (that would be me) calmly and with empathy, but it was a really stressful morning.