prometa

Our (domestic hub-hub) flight went from the interim map to the polarisized flight, and the assignments changed as follows:

1A-->1A (sensible)
2A-->2A (sensible)
1C-->3A (hmm, why not 1D?)

since 1A and 2A are the only old GF seats that have matching assignments in a Polaris bird, and 1A may be blocked for pilot rest, I'd say 2A is the best old GF seat to grab if you'd like to have the best chance of staying in that cabin through several aircraft swaps. No telling what will happen to the 3A assignment if a pre-Polaris GF bird is swapped back in, but I'd hope our 1A/2A seats would remain.

Perhaps of note, the flight was sold out prior to the actual seat map being loaded, and now that it'll be the higher-capacity bird the last few rows of E- are empty. Even so, UA RM has not opened any new seats for sale, which says something about the frequency of last minute plane swaps. Oddly enough, though, the plane went from booked 48J to booked 50J on the flight status page instantly when the Polaris map was loaded. Not sure if 2 upgrades processed as soon as that happened, the interim map was overbooked by 2 in J, or what.

findark

But you don't know how many unassigned Y pax there are.

TravelinWilly

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HELLO UNITED PEOPLE! LONG TIME NO SEE! TELL ME YOU'VE MISSED ME! TELL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!

It's been some time since I posted here, as I left United ~10 years or so ago, for a whole host of reasons, most of which I've forgotten by now...

Well, I've had cause to book a ticket on a UA 777 flying IAD-SFO-IAD with the old three-class configuration. It was a paid ticket (money, not points/miles) and I haven't had status on UA since 2008, after eight years as a 1K.

I was able to book us into seats 2A and 2C out the outbound and the return, in the former first cabin. Yay?

However, when I checked the reservation for something earlier this week, I noticed that United moved us out of 2A and 2C on the return and assigned us to 9A and 9B (in the narrow business cabin).

When I called United about this, they said that someone who had Premier status bumped us out of 2A and 2C, which I thought was strange, as in my experience (not on United, but on American and Delta where I've had top tier status after leaving United), an assigned seat was an assigned seat, unless there was a medical need to move someone, or an equipment swap, etc. I've never heard of or seen an airline moving someone out of an assigned seat for an upgrade.

So, the question: Is moving someone out of an assigned seat for an upgrade really a thing at UA?

Since I started participating on FT back in 1999 or so, I was pretty good about understanding a lot of the arcane rules around fare classes, rules, upgrades, etc., but I'm 20 years older and, well, I've stopped paying attention to United at this point.

Thanks for any wisdom anyone can impart!

Kacee

No they don't do that, and I believe the agent misspoke.

The former Global First seats on the 3-class 772 are supposed to be reserved for 1K and GS. There was a brief window when anyone could book them, and you must have grabbed them during that period. I'm pretty sure you were auto-bumped out of them and moved back to the business class cabin. And that the phone agent inaccurately described what had occurred.

More here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...le-1k-gss.html

prometa

TravelinWilly

Kacee,

So...six minutes after I posted you answered! GOD I LOVE THIS PLACE! I used to be a FT ninja like you, back in the days when I knew things... Thank you so much for the (exceptionally fast) answer.

I booked the ticket in late October, so I'm not sure if that was the window when anyone could book the seats, but I'm just throwing it out there as a data point.

The upshot to all this is that I was able to change our flight SFO-IAD to a later flight on a 737 in first; I asked if I should change our outbound IAD-SFO to the later 737 flight so we wouldn't risk getting bumped as well, and the agent told me that he added a note saying that we should not be moved out of 2A and 2C for that segment, so I'm hoping we're all set.

Thank you again for the help!

IAH-OIL-TRASH

You prefer a domestic F seat over a lie-flat for that long of a flight??? The 8-across lie-flat isn't the best lie-flat, but I think I'd still take it for a 5ish-hour flight over a 737.

StuckinITH

It was October 20 and the window was very short (at most one day or two)

Yes, especially since seats 9A and 9B are decent seats. It's not like they were the middle seats in the middle group of four. And, in that plane, sometimes you are lucky and get Channel 9.

findark

Unfortunately, it's usually a computer that will handle any reassigning, so I don't know that the note will help. Good luck!

TravelinWilly

The person I'm travelling with would have a difficult time with the eight-across business cabin; this is due to a medical issue, and I need to leave it at that. But believe you me, I would take a lay-flat for a 40-minute flight from Washington National to Laguardia!

I checked, and I booked the ticket on 26 October early evening, so who knows why I was able to book the first cabin? Maybe there was a second window? That said, thanks for the info.

Actually, I may have misspoken when I said "note." My take is that I was chatting with a call center in Asia, and the agent's English, while pretty good, wasn't entirely clear. He implied that he had prevented the seats from being reassigned, and that was noted in the record, and that they could do that in the case of a medical condition, so it may have been an indicator (e.g., a check box?) that he was able to set to prevent the auto-kick-out-of-the-seat programming. Mind you, he volunteered that after I suggested that we move to the later 737 flight IAD-SFO on the outbound, figuring I would save United a second phone call if we got bumped to the eight-across cabin again, so he seemed quite confident that we're all set.

WAIT! I just checked to see if we were moved again, and it looks like there was an equipment swap, and now it's a Polaris cabin. So that's cool? It assigned me to an A seat, him to a G, but I managed to get him into the C across from me, so it's almost the same as 2A and 2C on the international first, I guess. There were no sets of two seats together in the middle, so that wasn't an option.

bbriscoe34

I'm looking to book an award flight including ORD to BRU on a 772 next July, in J saver. The seat map shows the pointy rounds on rows 1-2, 6-7, and 8-10. Rows 1-2 are 1-2-1 config and the other rows are 2-4-2. However it apparently would let me book row 1-2 in "United Polaris Business" class. Are these actually F class seats being sold as J?

jsloan

If you have 1K or Global Services status, yes. However, the actual aircraft may be swapped with a retrofit Polaris-equipped plane; there's no way to know in advance what you'll actually fly.

phkc070408

Yes. This route is flown by the sUA 777-200. 12 of these planes are in a 3-class configuration with Polaris J (with the new Polaris Seats), Premium Economy W, and Coach Y. The remaining 18 sUA 772 in service, the one you are looking at, are also 3 class planes, but they have 6 First Class seats F, 40 Business Class seats in the old configuration J, and Coach Y. Since United doesn't know which plane will be on a particular flight, there are some temporary changes.

1. They don't sell First Class anymore
2. They sell 48 Business seats. The old First Class seats are given to elites who have Business Class tickets.
3. Premium Economy seats are sold as Economy Plus seats, and those who end up in those seats are very lucky.

Markie

Went from normal (2A) to Polarised (2A) and back again (6A).
Grrrr

FriendlySkies