Baze

Don't know all the details but a lot of the upgrades, Mainly ones that pre-clear, never show up on the cleared list.

WineCountryUA

I could easily see the new person assigned to the "empty seat", asking a FA -- someone is in my seat and the FA checking with the GA, learning -- Oh he got upgraded and is now in seat X. Not checking names carefully. Sloppy but no headcount issues, no real rules broken-- feeling rushed in the boarding process.

HOWEVER, the BP scan on boarding should have caught this -- proving is going to be a challenge and it will depend on how easy/hard the customer service agent wants to make this. YMMV

geometry

Just finished talking with United. The agent was very underatnding and told me that she would take care of the refund.(miles and money) Strangely, she said she saw two seat numbers attached to the same flight that my dad was on. (one was the exit row window he actually sat in and the other one was the upgraded seat) I didn't even know that it was possible fro one person to hold two seat assignments in two different classes in one reservation.

I get the feeling that UA gate agents must have paged my dad, but he didn't pay any attention to it. (mostly my fault for getting him the new Bose QC35 headphones... which made him appear anti-social at airports and on planes because he couldn't hear the outside world anymore)

Kacee

That's some impressive customer service.

geometry

While the UA agent was nice and polite.. she did take almost 30 minutes on the phone to try and sort this out.

I'll reserve my comments until my refunds show up.(or not)

Once the refund appears on my credit card, I'll come back and update this thread.

Or come back and rant some more if I don't see the money?

txaggiemiles

fastair

As jsloan said, that proves nothing. In the days of paper tickets, a TICKET was singular, but a boarding pass could still be reissued. Now that 99.8% of tickets are electronic, the number of people who lose their boarding pass (as there is no ticket) and show an ID to get it reissued is staggering. The alternative would be for everyone who lost their boarding pass be denied boarding until they bought a new ticket or went thru a LTA process (lost ticket application) which is not free, nor quick, and then, a singular boarding pass would be issued. As it is, one can check in online, and then checkin with the machine and have multiple boarding passes, and even reissue them again without ever seeing an agent.

The history (your support agent) wont show 2 seats (unless he is holding to segments booked), it will show EVERY seat ever assigned be it a seat change, a plane change, and upgrade...ANY change, the time it was assigned....1, 2, 3... But only the last one is the one thr person SHOULD have sat in. The others are all expired. If it was cleared at the gate and BP scanned, it should have reissued new BP, if it had cleared thru the PNR, he'd need to uncheck in and recheck in. If he had both segments in his PNR, is where the issue would be. He'd still be checked in for Y and that would be valid, and the scanner would not error, and have never checked in for C. The method of his clearing and the timing (before or after checkin) are the details that make this interesting.


Hopefully dispite the lucky outcome, a lesson was learned. upgrading something in secret after the product has been activated has it's flaws. Your dad bought the basic software, downloaded it, then yo upgraded it to the premium software, but you never told him. Do you think he'd ever know that he could re-download the premium software? Inform people about changes you make to their property. Nice idea, and kudos to you, but flawed in terms of reality.

Kacee

The agent would have been fully justified in saying, "the passenger boarded, the coupon was used, no refund is due."

And you're complaining the call took too long.

estnet

BUT he did try to notify his dad when the ug cleared (and even if his dad had known it was pending he still wouldn't have known it cleared b/c google fi phone didn't work !) (and yes I've had lots of issues with google fi)

Kacee

There are multiple ways to determine whether an upgrade has cleared, including the old fashioned way: asking the gate agent.

msp3

There's something to be said about reliability when it comes to technology. Just like VoIP phones are not real landlines (not even really phones, just a poor approximation of it), IPTV is not real cable, Wi-Fi based cell phone service (Google Fi, Comcast, Xfinity, etc.) is not real cell phone service unless it connects to a real cell phone network...

nexusCFX

Google Fi uses cellular networks in addition to WiFi. It's an MVNO.

fastair

I missed that part Sorry OP. Glad you got resolution, sad it wasn't what you were trying for. Very nice gesture

drewguy

You didn't say which way he was flying TATL, but I've always found flights from Europe to be a bit hinky on the upgrade processing. Not every time, but sometimes. Not sure the GAs know the process as well as they should. They really should be looking for upgraded pax at the gate, particularly those upgraded in the last couple of hours. (Often I see GAs with new printed BPs for the last upgrades, with a cross chart to check against originally assigned seat.)

Hopefully the UA agent's promise comes through - I suspect this would be such a preposterous story to make up that they figure it can only be true. (How many people would take a late upgrade and then go back to claim they didn't actually use it and sat in coach? And even have a picture to "prove" it?)

CIT85

OP did not inform his dad that there is an waitlisted upgrade, thus his dad didn't know to check or ask the gate agent.

fastair is correct, upgrade attempt should not be kept secret from passenger. Nice gesture, but flawed execution to cover all contingencies.