WineCountryUA

On what aircraft?
Economy Plus (UA's extra leg space) and preferred together might be 60% more of economy

UA's extra leg space Economy Plus is larger than others but that is considered a plus by elites -- as it means most elites will get E+.

BigFlyer

The UA plane I am booked on from SFO to FRA is a 777-300er. Looking at the seat map that shows in my reservation and Seatguru

• Rows 30-35 on the side sections and 30-33 in the center are E+. Those are real premium seats and are not what I am .....ing about.
• Beginning right after the E+ are the premium seats that appear to go through row 48 (at least for the aisle and window seats, hard to tell because many of the seats already reserved
• Row 49 (or 50) through 58 is regular non-premium seats.

So roughly there are 14 rows of ordinary seats designated as premium and 8-9 rows of ordinary seats that are non-premium. So forgetting cheapskate BE buyers for a moment, many people buying regular coach fares that include seat selection are unable to select anything other than middle seats without paying an upcharge. This probably goes unnoticed by most on this forum as most are elites (which reminds me while I am trashing UA over their seat policy, UA's Million Miler policy is better than DL - I'm a Million Miler on DL and all I get is crappy Silver, UA gives gold at the same level.)

WineCountryUA

For UA's 773ER
Row 42-43 are not preferred and a 1/3 of 46/47/48 are not preferred as is 49-58
84 preferred - 41%
120 non-preferred - 59%

and 62 E+



So the majority of the non-E+ economy is non-preferred but the late bookers will find aisle gone as there are just 46 non-preferred aisles -- and they go first

Not to go to far off topic, UA's 1MM BIS 1MM is harder to earn than DL's 1MM MQMs with fare class bonuses

BigFlyer

Original poster here, reporting back.

So I purchased a $37 aisle seat through seat selection, but it was near the rest room. I checked about 30 hours before flight time, one better $37 aisle seat opened up and I was able to grab it.

At OLCI time I decided to check to see if anything better was available, and got this bizarre screen:



So they were selling Economy Plus seats for $35, $2 less than I had paid for my non-preferred seat. And you could still buy a "preferred" seat for $77.

Needless to say I selected an Economy Plus seat, with no additional payment because I was credited with the $37 I pad for my original non-"preferred" seat.

This also caused my boarding group to update from 4 to 2, caused my BP to say "Premier Access", and I now had two free bags instead of 0.

Is this normal for UA? Or was I just lucky?

fumje

I can�t say if it�s common, but they definitely goofed. Enjoy.

WineCountryUA

Was the E+ seat an aisle or middle?

The Premier Access free bag allowance is a glitch unless these was a "bundle" that include those

BigFlyer

Aisle. One of a few available open aisle seas.