chavala

Kacee

The agents certainly have the ability to do it. I suspect most occurrences involve a particularly over-entitled passenger. And that the vast majority of random seat changes are the result of either (i) faulty UA IT, or (ii) FAM, rather than elite seat poaching.

WineCountryUA

I have added "as a policy" to the opriginal posting, it is clear you got a rogue agent, other agents corrected the problem and you got an ETC/apology. That seems to get to the statement, it is not policy and not allowed. To attribute the acts of a rogue agent to all of UA seems to be over extrapolation -- this was the act of poor agent violating UA policy. Correctly, in the end, UA did you right and hopefully, there were consequences for the rogue agent.

The urban myth of UA policy to bump your seat assignment for GSs, 1Ks, ... has been debunked many times. However, rogue agents do have the power but the number of verifiable instances is small and it is not a significant cause of the seat change incidents -- that was the point of the statement.

LondonElite

Nice one!

findark

Rumor is they are no longer in F. Stories I saw said they would often be in the rear (to keep an eye on all pax) but could easily see one in 8C for the "flight deck view" now that F is no longer approved.

It's possible your seat changed after check-in, but the check-in process absolutely re-states your current seat assignment (and lets you change it).

FreqFlyerCLE

I’m flying EWR - FCO on Wednesday. When I purchased ticket I selected an E+ seat. When I viewed my flight information today, I see that my seat was changed to E- I’m a UA Plat. Original seat was 21G which even with an aircraft change to PremPlus configuration my original seat still exists. I’ve tried calling Premier line and agents tell me that there is nothing they can do and to speak with gate agent. FTers please advise and thanks in advance!

Kacee

Pretty poorly handled by UA. Unfortunately not uncommon: Random seat changes to UA itineraries after having an assigned seat [Consolidated]

Suggest watching seat map obsessively for a better seat, or better yet, set an Expert Flyer alert. Some good seats will likely open right around T-24 when upgrades to business are processed. Note also that your aircraft may swap back to the old version.

drewguy

Yes, that sucks. United does a pretty poor job when it switches airplanes, especially with the aircraft where there's a Polaris/non-Polaris variant, with the former having far fewer E+ seats. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to it, even when your seat still exists in both configurations.

mahasamatman

Or they may not, as Silvers get to pick up E+ at that point.

FreqFlyerCLE

Thanks for the replies. Misery loves company as they say! The frustration is that why I was not accommodated in E+. I can only image what UA would do (and does) to non-elite flyers. I realize that we are not guaranteed a seat assignment but the way the this is being handled makes me feel like I bought a Basic Econ ticket!

txaggiemiles

Has united heard our complaints?

Flew FRA-ORD-IAH. ORD-IAH was a PMCO767. About 2 days ago it changed to a Polaris config. and I was able to snag 1F & 1L. Today while I was in the air on FRA-ORD the plane changed back to a PMCO767 configuration. I caught it mid flight but noticed we had 1D & 1K, with an otherwise full cabin.

Once landed at ORD I had this text message from United:

Your seat assignment to Houston has changed on Flight UA1989 due to an aircraft swap. We've done our best to keep your original seating preferences and are sorry for the inconvenience.

Get boarding pass/view options at <link>


Any other reports of this? Nice improvement if the new standard.

Kacee

I got the same email when they swapped out Polaris 763 for non-Polaris 763 TXL-EWR three weeks ago, except my new seat assignment totally sucked.

dogloverjb

I booked 3C and the guy in 3D booked 3D. I received 3D when I checked in and he got 3C. FAs on board still had us in our booked seats and was confused. No aircraft change.

seenitall

Another annoying and incomprehensible seat shuffle. Wife and I reserved 22HK on 777-200. When reservation made, 22J is blocked due to possibility of plane be Polarized. Well, this did occur, and now we are allocated 22G and 22L. 22K was given to someone who now must think they won the lottery. Both of our seats are under the same PNR. Why would a program decide that we wanted to be split? Customer unfriendly to the max.

findark

Here's a new one... 763 was assigned a Polaris frame today and we went from 3AB to... nothing. Seat assignments just blanked out. Did not seem to happen to most pax as J4 and only 8 unassigned. Now in 9A and 9L, and hopefully don't swap back again.