I sympathize with the OP's sister. It reminds me when I went to a Chevy dealership, paid $20K for a Cruze and then the stupid salesman gave me a $20K Chevy Cruze instead of the $70K Corvette I really wanted. My brother tried explaining to the "rude" salesman that even though I only paid $20K, he was sure there is a law somewhere than if I reaaaaaly want a Corvette, but only paid for a Cruze, Chevrolet still has to give me the more expensive car. I mean come on, I'm a really busy guy with kids, how the heck am I supposed to keep track of prices for different types of cars?

I'm just wondering whats left when personal responsibility goes away? What else is there? The rules are well documented and everyone is expected to play by them, no exceptions. It's common decency to respect the rules we must all live by, it's more or less the basis of all civilization. A key part of raising children is teaching them about personal responsibility, following the rules and common decency. People without personal responsibility shouldn't fly. People trying to game the system are not welcome by those of us who suffer their static and indignation. I've raised 3 wonderful daughters, I have paid my dues in full.

Obviously, this is not the same story. Your girlfriend got a good deal out of it. If the OP would have given his First Class seat to the gentleman who had to give up his aisle seat for a middle seat, everybody here would have congratulated the OP for being so nice to his sister in law and the kids.

They already do.

Early boarding is sold as an add on. Yet parents of small children can get it free.

This is not really any different. It isn't gaming the system because you can't fake having a child.

The issue I have with the OP's presentation of the story isn't so much kids being split from their parents, it's the entitlement angle. She's such a BUSY MOM, how dare you impugn her righteousness??!??!?! It's an intellectually lazy argument which by default makes anyone who challenges the argument a kid hater or anti-family or what have you.

I have kids, I've gone through this before, kids in Row 23 me and my wife in Row 12. It sucks, but it's life, you just deal with it when boarding and 99.9% of the time, you get it worked out with other passengers. Most adults don't want to sit next to someone else's kids and they're more than happy to switch. But, I've never once demanded that a GA move people around on my behalf. I wouldn't even think of doing such a thing.

And yeah I'm busy as hell as is my wife. Everyone's busy. But nobody is busy enough to not have 10 seconds to read fare rules when booking online. This is all part of the victim society we've created, where nothing is ever anyone's fault anymore. And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

👏👏👏👏👏

You are absolutely right. Read the rules and if the product doesn't suit you, don't buy it.

Just one thing though - in the situation you described above, why not one adult and one child in row 12 and one adult and one child in row 23, rather than "working it out with other passengers"?

I suppose we have a disagreement. I am not suggesting that a parent with a child gets to 'choose' seats for free, only that United assigns them some seats together. I don't think that being seated with your child is a 'perk' nor is it an amenity nor does it create a moral hazard. More so, I see it as a liability for the airline should something happen to that child in flight, I see it as an inconsideration of other passengers (who now have to essentially babysit), and furthermore I see it as totally avoidable. What is so hard about United just assigning seats at ticketing for a parent and minor children in the back of the plane? Who does that inconvenience? United can and should still charge them if they want to change seats. If two parents with two minor children buys BE fares, I am saying that United can simply ensure that each child is seated with at least 1 parent at ticketing (whether that is finding 2 sets of 2 seats together, a set of 3 seats and a single seat elsewhere, or 4 adjacent seats, its whatever United wants to do). That is still in every practical way a situation in which a BE ticket is still a BE ticket! (can't choose seats, can't bring on baggage without paying fees, can't accumulate miles etc etc). Blocking parents with children from buying a BE fare is taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut.

American Airlines for whatever reason figured this out with their BE and whenever a minor child is ticketed in BE they simply assign low-value back of the cabin seats at ticketing to ensure that any minors are seated with a parent. If anything, this can actually create a lower value than travelling alone with a BE ticket (where if you wait to check in until the last minute, there is a decent chance they will put you in main economy extra because those are where the only unassigned seats are!). United (and all us) have an example where this problem is solved, which is why I am somewhat amazed at how this thread is so long and heated. I don't think anyone paying regular discounted economy fares in AA suffers one iota from their system, nor do I think this give any incentive to parents with children to buy BE fares over the rest of the travelling public.


Reading the fare rules, it isn't explicit about minor children. They state that 'families' won't necessarily be able to sit together, which makes sense for any group of grown adults (couples, grandparents, sisters, etc). Sure, one could take this interpretation to the fullest extent, but this is an interpretation that in my opinion defies common sense, an interpretation that is factually at odds with how other airlines treat minor children, and an interpretation that goes against a law that Congress passed (which sure wasn't developed into actual hard rules, but the language was still passed with bipartisan sponsors). So, what we have here is a case of imperfect information.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...onomy-faq.aspx
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...c-economy.aspx

The busy mom angle to me is simply the recognition that this is a person who lacked perfect knowledge. In many parts of society, there are situations in which there is a large disparity in outcomes between people who have disparities in knowledge. Oddly enough, the finer details of air travel is one of those areas (in no small part due to a lot of fine print and complicated rules that airlines purposefully develop to squeeze extra profit margins levied on those with imperfect knowledge through fees). I do extensive work in the university setting to correct knowledge-disparities that have produced large disparities in who continues to graduate education (in STEM, where is matters), and frankly, I get sick and tired of people with more perfect knowledge blaming others with imperfect knowledge for their outcomes. It isn't helpful and smacks of privilege. FT should work more at correcting knowledge, not blaming people for a lack of knowlege. And what is that knowledge? That knowledge is that United indeed has this terrible policy on minor children that is in violation of the spirit of a 2016 law passed by Congress but not made into rules. A policy that is less customer friendly than their competitors.

I suppose we do.
It's not about "choice." The rules of the BE fares say "NO PRERESERVED SEATS" - you're asking for seats to be prereserved for families. It's fair that we have the discussion about whether BE fares are a good thing or a bad thing (personally I think they suck, and Kirby's leading a race to the bottom), but they're a thing, and this is how UA is choosing to implement the concept. People are asking for an exception to the explicitly stated (and even vividly colored) rules based solely on the fact that they're traveling with a child.
It is and does when the rules of the fare say that you're not entitled to prereserved seats and the only way to do that under the fare rules is with an exception for which other travelers are not eligible.
The potential liability and inconvenience are caused not by UA, but by the passengers' unwillingness to pay a higher fare pursuant to which they could reserve seats together.
It's not hard at all - it's easily done by the passenger paying the fare that includes the ability to do so.
Everyone. It inconveniences passengers traveling on higher priced fares who should have been able to choose the seats that the family is preassigned to. It unfairly penalizes BE passengers traveling in a group without children who wouldn't be eligible to do book a couple of seats together.
See above about what the fare rules actually say. They say that BE passengers can't "prereserve" seats, not just that they can't "choose" their seat. As my kindergarten teacher used to tell me (I still remember, cough, 40+ years ago...): "You get what you get."

Maybe - like I said, I don't know how big a problem this is. It depends upon how many parents are choosing to make a fuss over not getting to prereserve seats when the booking engine basically screams "YOU CAN'T PRERESERVE SEATS!!!" If it's a small number of parents ignoring the fare rules when they book and hoping for the best, then maybe UA doesn't need to make a systematic change.

It's not actually "solved," it's just that AA has chosen to ignore the issues. That may be the most commercially viable choice, UA is choosing differently at least for now. The fact that this thread *is* so long and heated, and the circumstances causing OP to start the thread in the first place, is evidence that there is an incentive to choose the BE fares.

You'll note that the mom in OP's post wasn't complaining that she couldn't "buy-up" her fare to one where she could have seats together, she was complaining that she didn't get seats together for free...

After much thought, I have to say, that while I don't like the way the airlines are running their business today, the ultimately responsibility for this mess is with the parent. As a parent, we always made sure that we could fly together when the kids were very small. If a flight was so full we could not get seats together, we booked another flight. Yes, at times that was inconvenient and somewhat more expensive. When the children were big enough to sit alone, we still made certain they were near enough to us that we could monitor their well-being and behavior on the aircraft. It's what parents do.

UA is very clear on the product they sell. Parents are well aware that they have the option of getting a seating assignment together, but because they want to save money (and/or a a sense of entitlement), they figure that they can get it both ways, pay a lower price and have a high likelihood of still getting the seats they want. If they ask, a GA will likely try to seat them together anyways (giving GA's more work during boarding). If that fails, ask people to switch seats on the plane (slowing down boarding). Probably, 90% of the time, they get what they want. The other 10% of the time, they can write in and complain and will probably still get a voucher or some miles.
IMHO, its the same as parents who do not buy a seat for their infant and let them sit on their lap. By letting an infant since on the parent’s lap, the parent basically forfeit the child’s life and put the lives of the people around them in danger if there is a serious accident. But they know there is a high likelihood that there will be no incident and they will get to their destination safely. Thus they opt for the cheaper option.

Parents can raise their children anyway they see fit. However, don't involve me and don't ask me for help in doing it. I'm not interested.

I suspect that anyone who ends up seated next to Ebenezer Dorset's 10-year-old son on a TCON might have a different take on the efficacy of the airline seating children with parents.

The entire premise of this endless thread is evident in the title, e.g., that UA split up a family.

UA did no such thing. The parent split up her family.

Bingo!

It didn't have to, it could just as easily sat the family together. And if it had done so earlier, the gent who ended up in a middle seat might have ended up in a different aisle seat.

Or the OP could have offered his seat to the gent who ended up in the middle seat in an effort to help out his SIL and thank the gentleman who otherwise got stuck with the middle seat. Her (SIL) lack of preparedness became the problem for the poor unfortunate middle seat guy.

...and they could just as easily have bumped me up to F last time I flew with a Y ticket (notwithstanding of course the fact that I hadn't paid for it).

Or they could perfectly easily have let me into the lounge (forgetting that I don't have a pass).

They could also have let me check my luggage without charging me (I mean, I need that suitcase!)

Of course, they quite correctly didn't do any of those, for the simple reason that I hadn't paid for them.

UA's Basic Economy means you don't get to choose who you sit with. It is not a feature of the product that the family bought. If you don't like that, buy something else.

Really, you're going to argue on behalf of the proposition that the plain understanding of the word "family" doesn't include a group including one or more parent(s) and one or more child(ren)? *That* "is an interpretation that in my opinion defies common sense..."

You're also going to argue that someone who doesn't understand united.com's language on their website is somehow intimately familiar with federal statutory authority that has yet to be implemented into applicable regulation? You have to be kidding me.

Here's what UA presents the moment you click on the button to book a PE fare:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...083ed2b578.jpg

I'm sorry, but it is fair to assume a "reasonable traveler" standard here and expect that a person booking travel online understands that "a group or family" means, well, "a group or family."

I reject this entirely. It literally could not be more clear in the booking process that if you want to sit together as a group or family, you should book Economy, not Basic Economy, which will cost you an additional cost of $30 per person for this particular routing. It requires you to check a box saying "Basic Economy works for me." There is no need to review "a lot of fine print and complicated rules." This is the plainest of plain English. They even use pictures. The acknowledgement box is written in roughly 1st or 2nd grade level English (I checked).

Anyone who can read at the most basic level is provided all of the information necessary for them to understand what the rules are.

And here we get to the crux of it. You're making a quasi-political argument to attack a commercial policy of UA that you don't like. The only privilege that's in question here is that of families who believe that they should receive discounts on airfares because they are traveling with children.

Oh, and about being "less customer friendly than their competitors"? Here's what DL (the market leader) says:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ada176a0e6.jpg

While that may be true in other cases, here's what the OP says about this one.

So she is getting personal advice on top of what the web sites say. I also have a hard time thinking "you cannot sit with a group or family" along with a picture of a large person with a small person could possibly be interpreted as "you can sit with your family".

And anyone who can read at the most basic level would realize that the reservation was not made on the site that you are quoting from.

Second Request

UA was not wrong and followed every Law as we know it to the letter.

OP bought a BE ticket and expected > BE service - that my friend, is the textbook definition of entitlement

What if i bought one ticket in Business and one in economy for my daughter and demanded my seatmate move to economy so I could sit next to my daughter? Same thing, just more money and entitlement involved

Now, like others have said, if your kids are underage, then I would suggest UA not allow booking of BE tickets at all, or making it so if an underage child is booked, there is a link in the reservation between the child and a guardian, so the "System" knows they can't be broken up.

Yes, yes, yes. And do NOT charge extra for this. A civilised society simply does not penalise parents for being parents. Some things are not about money.

They're not being charged "extra." They're just not being charged less.

Are they being charged "less" by being preboarded? Again, other passengers pay for early boarding and they get it free.

They don't get charged more, they just lose the opportunity to pay less (Basic Economy)

Huh? Nobody is penalizing parents - they are being treated as equals as every other flier. Should I get special privileges just because I decided to have kids and fly on an airplane? Where does it stop - elderly parent traveling with me - yep, special privilege - recently broken leg with a family member traveling with me - yep, special privilege - and on and on and on.

If you want special privileges, you don't get it by having kids - you get it by flying a lot - or paying extra for the privilege -

I'm a dreamer - I hope parents who have issue with this gravitate towards other airlines rather than have this sense of entitlement - the rest of us will have a more enjoyable flying experience.

No it could not. If you look at a seat map as a plane fills up, the last seats available are typically middles towards the back. These are the seats that UA expects to fill with BE fares, and by their nature, they are singletons. If a family (which implies at least two people) want to sit together, this means that at least one of the seats they require must be a window or an aisle. But such seats have already been claimed by pax on higher fares. None is likely to be available to a BE unless UA chooses to deny it to a higher fare customer. Maybe UA should trumpet that no BE pax is likely to have any seat other than a middle.

Trumpeting that BE pax will have middle seats is not unreasonable from my view.
How does UA handle seat assignments when the flight is not full and there are open window/aisle seats? Does UA automatically assign BE pax middle seats on the chance that other pax may, at the last minute, want one of those window or aisle seats?

That's a whole bunch of assumptions, you have no idea how UA allocates seats that are not already allocated. If there were no seats available to keep the family together at the time of booking UA should not have sold the tickets.

Not too long ago, I was in line to pick up a rental car. The family ahead of me had reserved the smallest and cheapest car they had, and it was obvious they and their luggage would not fit into a Kia Rio. The family was arguing that they needed a minivan, and since they didn't have any minivans, the Escalade in the lot would do nicely, thank you. For the same price as the Kia, of course.I see this as analogous - they reserved a product that didn't meet their needs because it was cheaper, and expected to get a more expensive product without paying the difference.

I think everyone in this thread believes that BE is not a suitable product for families. The discussion is really centered around what to do about it. Some say that there should be one more warning. Others say that the computer should decide based on a set of criteria that not everyone will agree on not to sell BE tickets when that's not an appropriate product. Still others say go ahead and buy BE, because it saves money and the only inconvenience will be some other schmuck will lose his seat.

They say bad cases make bad law, and that's part of why this thread has gone on and on. The agreed-upon facts are:

1. The sister-in-law bought a BE fare
2. Ultimately the family was able to sit together
3. This was accomplished without the OP having to give up his 1st class seat to the inconvenienced passenger
4. Now they are complaining about it

AA seems to arrange seats more proactively at the gate
 

FWIW, I flew American for the first time in ages last month, and I did notice them calling passengers up to the podium in the gate area prior to boarding, asking them if they would mind changing seats. I think the announcement they made was "is anyone in an aisle seat willing to switch to a different seat?" presumably to accommodate other people being seated together.

I thought at the time that I'd never heard such requests at a United gate. The AA method struck me as sensible, rather than trying to work it out ad hoc in the cabin.

Well yes, ultimately they got exactly what they wanted and didn't have to pay for it. If they make enough noise, UA will probably throw a voucher at them to shut them up too.

So hey! Everybody's happy! Except of course the guy that got kicked out of the seat he had reserved and paid for. But nobody really cares about him, do they?

If he wanted to sit in that seat, he should have planned ahead and brought some children with him.

:D :D Very good!

There is a vast difference between providing for the needs of certain types of passengers, e.g., families and paying for the service required.

This is common.

These folks wanted the service, e.g. pre-assigned seats for free.

Again, you're conflating two discrete services:

1. Pre-assigned seats which can be paid and allow people in the same party to sit together in the location of their choice.

2. Seats automatically allocated by the airline while keeping the party together.

I don't think its reasonable to get scenario 1 for free but it should be common sense for the airline to offer scenario 2, especially where kids are involved. If UA is unable to offer scenario 2, it shouldn't be offering that kind of ticket to families at all.