Extra Seat Given to Another Passenger: IDB?
Jan 10, 2014, 4:31 pm
#31
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Location: What I write is my opinion alone..don't read into it anything not written.
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Hyperbole is great, but I prefer Parabole
Jan 10, 2014, 4:34 pm
#32
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Wouldn't really work. Either you don't check in for the other F seats, in which case CPUs will fill them, or you do check in and scan the boarding passes (assuming you can pay for an empty seat, which is the premise here), in which case you are out a nice chunk of change. I'd guess that UA would love you for the latter case, and perhaps find a way to blacklist you for doing too many of the former case.
Jan 10, 2014, 4:37 pm
#33
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1. GS.
2. Paid seat given to nonrev travelling off the clock. Probably a grievous violation of UA policies.
OP, don't expect the same results for a mere 1K.
If you are willing to pay UA's price for all the seats, yes absolutely.
Of course your analogy is completely (and deliberately) inaccurate, since your pax has cancelled the extra paid seats for a refund. That is not what happened here. Money paid, but no value was received. Not sure why you are having difficulty grasping this concept.
If you're going to use an analogy, please create one that corresponds to the facts.
2. Paid seat given to nonrev travelling off the clock. Probably a grievous violation of UA policies.
OP, don't expect the same results for a mere 1K.
If you are willing to pay UA's price for all the seats, yes absolutely.
Of course your analogy is completely (and deliberately) inaccurate, since your pax has cancelled the extra paid seats for a refund. That is not what happened here. Money paid, but no value was received. Not sure why you are having difficulty grasping this concept.
If you're going to use an analogy, please create one that corresponds to the facts.
Wow! It's been against UA policy for as long as I can remember to discuss actual employee discipline with customers. I mean if an employer is afraid of stating anything more than "This person did work here then" to another potential employeer for fear of a lawsuit, don't you think this station manager is opening him/herself and UAL corp for some serious actions by this former employee? It would be pretty ironic if he/she (former employee) hired your wife to represent him against UAL. You could REALLY clean up then! 
I'm asssuming that station manager was at least implying that the fact the former employee is no longer working is a result of the incident. Abscent that, I think it is still inappropriate for UAL corp (and a station manager of a hub is a VP level position) officer to be discussing the employment history of any of his/her employees to anyone outside of UAL without consent. But that's just me...an advocate for individual rights extending to the workplace!
I'm asssuming that station manager was at least implying that the fact the former employee is no longer working is a result of the incident. Abscent that, I think it is still inappropriate for UAL corp (and a station manager of a hub is a VP level position) officer to be discussing the employment history of any of his/her employees to anyone outside of UAL without consent. But that's just me...an advocate for individual rights extending to the workplace!
To be honest, as a director/manager of over 400 employees, I was a little surprised that they brought it up as well!
Last edited by 1KPath; Jan 10, 2014 at 4:44 pm Reason: Consolidation
Jan 10, 2014, 5:30 pm
#35
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Additional information:
- Neither wife nor son is a POS. Son is 2 years old and flies better when he has more space to entertain himself and lay down if he is tired.
- This was not a poacher grabbing an empty seat. The other passenger had a boarding pass with my son's window seat number printed on it.
- My wife actively showed the crew all three boarding passes but the crew basically just waved her off and said everyone find a seat we're closing the door.
- Just viewed the reservation on united.com. Now Extraseat is not on the reservation at all and Son's seat assignment is middle. Of course the total price listed is still the mileage for three tickets.
- No one provided my wife with any replacement boarding passes, so if Extraseat had been relocated elsewhere in the plane after boarding it was never communicated to her.
- No, I wasn't there, but I specifically instructed my wife to make sure all three passes were scanned at the gate and she says they were. I have no reason to doubt her, she's not stupid. But even if one pass wasn't scanned and that pass was offloaded it doesn't explain the seat change from window to middle for my son.
- Abusers who book tickets and cancel them are irrelevant to this situation. All tickets that were booked were checked-in and boarded.
- Neither wife nor son is a POS. Son is 2 years old and flies better when he has more space to entertain himself and lay down if he is tired.
- This was not a poacher grabbing an empty seat. The other passenger had a boarding pass with my son's window seat number printed on it.
- My wife actively showed the crew all three boarding passes but the crew basically just waved her off and said everyone find a seat we're closing the door.
- Just viewed the reservation on united.com. Now Extraseat is not on the reservation at all and Son's seat assignment is middle. Of course the total price listed is still the mileage for three tickets.
- No one provided my wife with any replacement boarding passes, so if Extraseat had been relocated elsewhere in the plane after boarding it was never communicated to her.
- No, I wasn't there, but I specifically instructed my wife to make sure all three passes were scanned at the gate and she says they were. I have no reason to doubt her, she's not stupid. But even if one pass wasn't scanned and that pass was offloaded it doesn't explain the seat change from window to middle for my son.
- Abusers who book tickets and cancel them are irrelevant to this situation. All tickets that were booked were checked-in and boarded.
Last edited by BayAreaPilot; Jan 10, 2014 at 5:47 pm
Jan 10, 2014, 5:44 pm
#36
Join Date: Nov 2000
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Also, the honest truth is that UA comes out ahead in the OP's scenario. At the end of the day, what they really care about is how much money they can get per flight (quantized in how many seats they can sell) and how much weight they have to get airborne. If I'm willing to pay for 2 seats but am only half the weight of two people in those seats, they win...
Dan
Jan 10, 2014, 5:54 pm
#37
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Jan 10, 2014, 6:01 pm
#38
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I wouldn't mind if all under-12s were required to have an extra, empty seat next to them.
How would you cancel an already used flight coupon?
How would you cancel an already used flight coupon?
Jan 10, 2014, 8:14 pm
#40
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I would have stood-up in the aisle and told the agent/flight attendant to clear the seat I paid for and had a boarding pass for or they can unload me and my son from the flight.
At that point, they have to make a decision on how to deal with it.
If you remain seated, they just close the door and ignore you.
At that point, they have to make a decision on how to deal with it.
If you remain seated, they just close the door and ignore you.
Jan 10, 2014, 9:13 pm
#41
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The program is in place for medical necessity and for special circumstances (such as musical instruments). I am confident that they never intended to sell them just for passenger comfort.
The next thing you'll tell me is that it's fine to book the entire F cabin and cancel the reservations after departure so you can have it all for yourself. After all, you can do that on united.com, so is must be OK, right?
The next thing you'll tell me is that it's fine to book the entire F cabin and cancel the reservations after departure so you can have it all for yourself. After all, you can do that on united.com, so is must be OK, right?
Besides which, UA is going to measure the girth of pax to ensure they are CoSes? Please.
Your analogy is false.
Jan 10, 2014, 10:00 pm
#42
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This happened to Mrs1KPath and me last year...We were unable to use GPUs on the flight to LHR so I purchased three seats in Y+ and we were set...or so we thought...a few minutes before closing the door a GA came on board and said that they were using the middle seat and that we would have to apply for a refund...and if we did not like the situation that they would take us off the flight put us on a flight the next day. It turns out that the center seat was occupied by a "contract" worker for UA...who needed to get to LHR for a B-day party.
Upon arriving at LHR, Mrs1KPath went into full lawyer mode (she is a Law School professor and trial attorney) and tracked down the UA station manager and had a "little" chat with him...by the next morning we had a full refund for all three of our tickets and a very large customer service certificate as well...we were also upgraded to GF for the return flight and given a bottle of Champagne for our hotel room. By the time we made it back to the States (five days later), we had received two more large CS certs and a personal apology from our original departure city station manager stating that the GA violated a number of rules/standards and that said agent was no longer employed by UA.
As fastair indicated, I am sure that sometimes/maybe even most of the time this is an innocent mistake (but still due compensation)...but as my experience shows, it sometimes is not!
Upon arriving at LHR, Mrs1KPath went into full lawyer mode (she is a Law School professor and trial attorney) and tracked down the UA station manager and had a "little" chat with him...by the next morning we had a full refund for all three of our tickets and a very large customer service certificate as well...we were also upgraded to GF for the return flight and given a bottle of Champagne for our hotel room. By the time we made it back to the States (five days later), we had received two more large CS certs and a personal apology from our original departure city station manager stating that the GA violated a number of rules/standards and that said agent was no longer employed by UA.
As fastair indicated, I am sure that sometimes/maybe even most of the time this is an innocent mistake (but still due compensation)...but as my experience shows, it sometimes is not!
Jan 10, 2014, 10:29 pm
#43
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: MRY
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First of all, this notion that purchasing an extra seat is some "abuse of the system" is utter nonsense. I have purchased extra seats many times for the simple reason that I want more room. I'm a skinny dude and quite tall. I pay the same price as everyone else, so what's the issue here? Now one thing is important: you must make sure the boarding pass gets scanned. Sometimes it is also important to tip off attendants if they can't get the passenger count right. But you have full legal rights to that seat. The only thing you don't get is mileage for it, but I have no problem with that. How someone else could get assigned to the same seat is beyond me. There is a clear seat designation on the boarding pass. Recently I was in E+ and decided to move up to Business. United refunded me the money for the extra seat.
Jan 11, 2014, 11:13 am
#44
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Personally I would have made a huge stink about it and told GA to give back the seat. Even if technically not a person, I view this as a case of IDB and would at the least make a DOT complaint.
So many times it's not the refund but the benefit you want. The refund is meaningless. You wanted more room and didn't get it, despite paying for it.
The take away, IMO, given that UA is clueless and has terrible safequards to prevent ignorant gate agents from pulling stunts, is to get to the gate early and tell them you have an extra seat and that it needs to be scanned. Being proactive is only way to prevent a last minute add and then arguing while on board which gives you much less time and options to get things settled.
OP, please fill out DOT complaint and follow-up with written letter to UA. We need to start getting agents more accountable. So sick of how they screw up and nothing happens.
Even worse, in smaller airports you often have the ticket counter agent then walk down to the gate as the gate agent. The gift that keeps giving in some cases.
Jan 11, 2014, 11:32 am
#45
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Berkeley, CA
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It's likely that the extraseat got cancelled as a no-show, due to the normal Shares policies. If you've got a return flight to worry about, you're going to need to call and get that seat back.