iluv2fly

If they are making you "whole" to your satisfaction, I certainly would not and would not think that it was necessary.

zombietooth

I agree with this. OP needs to stay on UA's good side if they intend to continue flying them, and UA does track complaints and regularly "fire" customers for filing too many-whether justified or not.

Chalk this experience up to, "what's the worst that could possibly happen?", and be thankful that the odds are that you will never be treated this way again.

Good luck, nonetheless!

malgudi

This would've been my first

findark

While I would personally still be pretty upset over it all, the OVS DOWNGRADE chart is overall a pretty fair amount, so I would probably stop with your $500 and change,. Fare refund shouldn't be difficult, but don't expect it to be very large.

Unfortunately when it comes to the DOT, premium cabin pax have virtually no protections. Airlines can basically just renege on their end of the contract and face no penalty beyond issuing a refund.

Answering another question posed upthread, if UA puts you in OP's situation, you can refuse the downgrade.. at which point your only legal recourse is a full refund of the remaining ticket (or accepting any other solution voluntarily provided by UA), which is typically not very helpful.

ani90

I am in similar situation to OP. Traveling as a couple, purchased PP and cabin is oversold. Initially had no seat allocation but now showing us seated in 33 AB (E+). Both Y and PP are oversold and J has 9 seats blocked, so I assume to accommodate for over booked PP.

I understand if things work as they should then things will be sorted out at airport. But situation could easily change with flight delays, cancellations etc such that I end up in 33 AB as that is assigned seats.

Is there anything I can do to reduce my chances of ending up in those E plus seats and enhance chance of sitting in purchased cabin (or even OP up to J)? To complicate matters, the other party is minor (limiting access to row 20) ...

JimInOhio

If you're subject to cancellations or major delays, you're likely not to end up in 33AB anyway. Short of calling UA, I'd just wait it out.

Also, the exit row restriction is not for minors but those under 15 years age.

LimeySD

Shockingly poor response from UA but their reaction and stingy compensation is nothing we haven't heard before (a lot). The bigger question is the desire to oversell J and PP - economy I get but not these - what does it say for what they think of those on the upgrade list. These seats would not likely go empty even with no shows.

ani90

Was not referring to my flight, but others. I am on the last flight of the day bw EWR and LHR. I have certainly seen situations where an earlier flight has been cancelled, or delays have cause a bunch of pax to misconnect from earlier flights, so they then have to accommodate those passengers on the later flight. If so then could end up stuck in 33AB if J is filled up by J pax bumped from earlier flight as no room to accommodate oversell from PP.

Sorry I don't know the terminology. I should have said under 15 then.

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JimInOhio

If IRROPS cause extra passengers for your flight, they aren't going to bump those already holding a reservation on your flight. The only realistic way for you not to get a PP seat on that flight is if there's a change to an aircraft which doesn't have that cabin.

jsloan

Set a seat alert on ExpertFlyer (they're included in the free tier). If something opens up, grab it.

I would feel much more comfortable without a seat assignment than I would feel with a seat assignment in the wrong cabin.

ani90

I agree which is my concern. Is there any way to unselect this assignment?

jsloan

I'm not aware of any. You could call and ask if they could remove your seat assignment, but I don't know how likely you are to get an agent who really understands why you'd want to do that and would actually do it instead of assuming that you don't really want it done.

findark

Personally I would call and simply complain about having a seat assignment in the wrong cabin, but I agree I'm not sure it will be very productive.

ani90

I did try and helpful agent put me on hold and then said she couldn't take the seat assignments off and only airport can change on day of travel. This means, I presume, I will, on check-in, have a boarding pass printed with E plus seat numbers on PP ticket...strange method to deal with oversell.