sexykitten7

"A passenger on a flight from Houston to Washington D.C. has accused United Airlines of giving her first-class seat to U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. D-Houston, and then threatening to remove her from the plane for complaining and snapping a photo." Link to story.

More good news for United... I'd be pretty steamed too if I paid 140k miles to go to GUA!

Looks like the IAH-DCA reservation was cancelled. The only question is did UA or she (possibly by accident) do it? The d/g comp ($500 ETC) was pretty generous too. I'd rather have that than dom F. And she got a row to herself in E+.

getagb

The article is weird. One part says they searched thoroughly and found a cancellation via the mobile app. But another part says they’re still searching for a cancellation record.

sexykitten7

Ha. Didn't notice that. Well UA said she "appears to have canceled" which is usually a polite way of saying she screwed up but we could interpret it literally: they have no idea what happened.

AndyInSaigon

Pity that poor passenger that was seated next to SJL. She's notoriously rude & demanding of the airlines. The Houston Press once had a story about how Continental sent her office a Delta schedule & suggested she use another airline. My congressional rep.

Loren Pechtel

Sounds like they found a cancellation--but not for that flight. Someone saw cancelled and looked no further.

Often1

It's rare for an air carrier to take on a passenger directly and assert that the passenger cancelled. This averts the "I was called a liar" whine. Better to just say, "XXX appears to have happened."

mherdeg

This is confusing:

Is it UA's position that the pax cancelled her ticket after boarding? Gutsy / clever.

Or did UA board a pax with a cancelled reservation? How did the pax get on the plane?

Also kind of interesting to see that United told the pax that she cancelled her ticket and then … gave her a $500 voucher and let her stay on the plane in seat 11A? How did that work? Did they reinstate her eticket or issue a new eticket or carry a pax with no reservation and no ticket? Interesting.

SFO777

LOL. And kudos to CO if that story was accurate.

sexykitten7

The most logical explanation is the flight was delayed in IAH so she used the app to look at options, causing her reservation to be cancelled. Could be user error, could be a glitch. She was denied boarding at the gate since she was offloaded (had a paper BP) and the GA put her back on the flight in coach (the coupon was still open for use) and gave her d/g comp to shut her up. Obviously they did not pull a ticket out of thin air.

Two Bee

No, the only plausible explanation is "Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African American flight attendant who was very, very nice," Jackson Lee said in the statement." What pax who used 140,000 miles would have any other reason to challenge the fact that a continual trouble making Congresswoman, who buys Y tickets, but wants to always fly up-front, would bounce her out of her f/c seat. Couldn't be the same reason that I lost my f/c seat in DEN (that I had chosen 11 months previously) due to the fact that some "Whale" mooched 3B on a 320 with a possible bribe, came on the plane, and handed me a b/p for the rear, and told me to move as this was now his seat. Only thing different, I was already boarded, seated, and had my b/p with 3B printed on it. This flight took a delay due to my bad attitude, and I was offered 5,000 miles if I would move, because I was now causing a scene. Yep, I was, and I never moved. Wrote a 3 pager to c/s in Chicago and DEN and got lots of calls at the house about a week later. Turns out this guy was giving the g/a's gifts for favors and the supervisor who did this, retired over this matter. This stuff does happen, apparently quite often, but most people probably have no clue that they are being screwed, by liars. Another g/a in LAS that I knew quite well was fired for doing the same thing for a GS dude ($$$), and was told to retire, or else.

Since the Honorable Jackson Lee was photographed perched in the "ladies" seat, UA is going to C their A's, and put the onus on the ""lady" who generated no revenue, wasn't a BIG SHOT, in an obvious attempt to gain brownie points with a Congressperson! But got caught - RED HANDED! After they find when and where the lady cancelled her flight, everything will become much cleared, and they will let everyone know!

Btw, don't let the fact that SJL was personally escorted onto the plane, ahead of everyone else, allowed to sit in another persons seat, "Drop the Race Card", somehow direct your thinking towards "Misuse of Power" by the Congressperson, or UAL employees!

TominLazybrook

As far as SJL goes, I vote for her (absent any credible alternative), but she's by many accounts a terrible person and a bully. She routinely has her staff berate any number of groups for perceived slights.

This is a case where there is ample precedent for UA to have messed it up or for SJL to bully someone because she wasn't happy with where she was originally placed.

Quite frankly, if I were in the same position, I'd simply ask UA to provide proof of when I cancelled my ticket and when SJL got her upgrade and where she was in the upgrade queue versus every other pax in the section as well as her MP account to see if her status was 'earned'.. I'd ask for the 500 bucks and all of my miles back for the entire itinerary. Otherwise, I'd threaten to file a lawsuit and ask for discovery.

WineCountryUA

Moderator Note

This is the UA forum and discussion should focus on UA and our travel experiences on UA. Appropriate here is what did UA did or should have done. Discussion of the Congresswoman's politics or other non-UA related discussion belongs in OMNI. Some OT comments have been removed.

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

sexykitten7

Wowser! That's some pretty crazy shenanigans! I suppose anything's possible!

docbert

This seems to be what UA is claiming. The app would have offered a free change to other flights (even with no status). For someone not overly familiar with the app it's relatively easy to accidentally change to a different flight/routing, which would have cancelled the reservation on that flight whilst keeping the ticket valid.

It's also very possible the congresswoman had always been booked in that cabin all along and had simply changed seat, so she may not have even been the one that "stole" the F inventory.

Two Bee

Yeh! That's probably what happened!

The lady originally in 1A self-destructed her own itin, and lo and behold a f/a magically appeared and escorted the Congresswoman to that seat.

I truly hope that the lady who paid BIG miles to fly f/c pursues this matter, as she should. SJL threw everyone under the bus on this upgrade, except her designated escort.