Often1

UA won't take over the ticket from a TA to cancel it, but the TA can cancel it. Agents also sometimes conflate the question of whether there is any sense in cancellation with whether it can be done. There is no refund or credit.
But, two cautions:

1. You now hold two tickets for the same flight. That is definitionally "impossible" and violates UA's COC. More to the point, UA's systems may well auto-cancel one or both tickets.

2. Don't cancel the BE ticket unless you really need to be on that flight and really don't want the BE restrictions. If the flight is cancelled or substantially delayed, you are due a full refund to your original form of payment.

MIKEM

If i book a BE fare will they really not let my wife sit next to me - is it a possibility? Regular economy is $96 more. I could fly WN for $100 less. After a decade of 1K and now MM, these UA buttheads told me I would have lifetime benefits. If I can't even have my ill wife sit next to me...

spin88

It is not only a possibility your wife would not sit next to you, it is almost guaranteed. BE are only given seats after everyone else, and it is unlikely they have two seats together. BE is a loyalty tax, if you want to use your earned lifetime benefits, pay extra, or go to another airline.

And oh, you will not get any elite status credit on a BE fare.

MIKEM

thanks spin88. UA: bite me. On WN i can sit next to my wife and pocket $100.

LarryJ

If you are on the same reservation you would likely get seats together IF there are seats together at the time your seats are assigned. The problem is that if the flight is heavily booked, there probably won't be any seats together and you will be split up.

EmailKid

What do you mean, heavily booked

Just look at any random flight a couple of days out and you will see very few if any open seats next to each other @:-)

Odds are very low that a couple on N fare can sit together.

minnyfly

It all depends on the specific flight and how full it is. There's a good chance you will be seated together as long as both of you are on the same reservation. But they won't guarantee seating together, so they can't say they will. The only time I would worry about not being seated together is if the flight is overbooked or very, very nearly so. If you want to guarantee flying together, you'll have to pony up. No different than a price increase that you've undoubtedly paid for hundreds of times before. Just fly WN if it bothers you.

That's absolutely false on other carriers, and there's been no indication that it's different UA. You'll need some evidence to back that one up.

Seat maps a few days out are a poor source of available seats on the day of departure. There's a significant amount of seats blocked and passengers moved/upgraded by then.

spin88

We can quibble about how unlikely it is (very low, highly unlikely, nearly impossible) but I think we can all agree that a claim that there is a "good chance" that two BE passengers will be seated together is completely misleading and just designed to capture sales under false pretenses.

With BE in place, you either pay the extra tax to use your loyalty benefits (and more than OALs would be) or get shafted. United views your earned status is just a chance to wing your for a buy up.

It is notable that no other airline would follow United down this road of status devaluation, not even Delta, which before now has been the leading in status devaluations. This said, it appears that BE is hurting United and we may see more backing off their "$1 Billion" plan to monetize your status with higher fees.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I'll agree if you can supply any evidence to support this. I assume you've had multiple instances of travelling in BE with someone on the same PNR or have seen the BE seat assignment algorithm. Ooops. Bad assumption.

LarryJ

Some of those "unavailable" seats on the seat map are blocked seats and are available to the gate agent when they are assigning seats to BE customers. The agent can also see the seats that are reserved by customers who have not checked in. Those become available to be assigned to BE passengers as departure time approaches.

Unless a flight is booked close to full there is a reasonable chance of BE customers on a single PNR being seated together. No guarantees, of course, and some agents will work harder than others at putting those passengers together.

EmailKid

Um, I think we are on the same page here @:-)

All the planes I've been on lately have been rather full, and if you are getting seat assignment at the airport, and random one at that, I think given UA's record of being customer unfriendly we CAN assume there is low probability of couples sitting together.

That part does not matter to me as I travel alone, but would like to keep it honest.

Don't remember the number of times I've watched as GA tells families sitting apart that FA will take care of that on board ....

spin88

I am unaware of any policy whereby United blocks off and holds seats together for use later, and certainly none being saved for BE.

Seats do become available due to no-shows, or gate upgrades, or missed flights. However, IMHE, those are usually single seats. Further, these seats then (if they are aisle/window) then tend to go to any elites with bad seats. In 200+K miles of flying a year, I almost never see two seats together close to departure, the seats are instead single scattered seats.

I would say that unless the flight is booked less than 80% full - which is highly unusual unless one is traveling at an undesirable time - I have rarely seen two seats together close to departure when BE is assigned.

Put another way, if you are taking the 5:30 am flight out, and its the cheapest seat UA is selling, well then it is likely not booked at 80% and you can likely sit together, but given load factors, I would not count on ever getting seated together on a BE ticket at normal flight times.

We are on the same page. It is either wishful thinking or misleading to suggest that a couple buying BE has a "good chance" of sitting together, given average loads, it is not likely.

mduell

Sure, it's possible you won't sit together.

Also possible on WN, unless you pay the early bird tax, you may be late in the checkin order and there may be no seats left together when you board.

anc-ord772

Maybe, but it might just work. I am looking at LAX-ROC in 2017.

DL BE | $229
UA BE | $242
DL/AA non BE | $244
UA non BE | $267

At first I was annoyed at UA and ready to book away out of spite. But after thinking about it, I might go UA.

I'm not flying BE on any carrier. I'm expecting no status on DL/AA in 2017. I can pay DL/AA $244 to sit in a regular seat or UA $267 for E+ (UA 1MM) plus elite benefits. Purchasing E+ equivalent on DL/AA is going to be more expensive than $25 UA up-charge (plus no priority boarding, etc.). The final kicker being that UA has a better schedule than DL/AA.

If all things were equal and I was interested in mainline economy, I would chose DL, but they are not. I would consider B6, but their schedule is not available far enough out, and I still value UA miles over B6.

YMMV.

jsloan

This is the exact same calculus that I've made. For a flight beyond a couple of hours in length, I refuse to fly without a preferred seat assignment. It's not that E+ is luxurious; it's that E- is torturous. So, when I compare flight prices, I'm comparing UA's price to other carriers' price, inclusive of the benefits that UA provides. For example, if I know I'll need a bag, I include its cost when I'm searching for my flight.

The only alternative I see to continuing to fly UA is a status match to AA or DL. DL is essentially a non-entity at AUS, which leaves AA. I see nothing in the AA program that makes me think it's any better than UA for my travel needs, and I see nothing in Doug Parker's history to suggest that he is going to change that.

And, despite what certain posters may believe, not all frequent flyers regularly purchase last-minute, high-fare tickets between non-stop destinations on heavily-competitive routes. The vast majority of my travel is personal, and I shop for the best deal I can get. Even my business travel is normally booked 14+ days in advance. There is little functional difference between the UA, DL, and AA approaches to BE for me. They're all bad.