Saver Award seating assignment
 

I went online and tried booking award travel using a Saver Award, and noticed that none of the E+ seats show up as available when viewing the seating chart. I then went back and tried booking using a Standard Award, and then the E+ seats began showing up as available, with the exception of the exit rows. I am 1k. Is this normal? Is the only way for me to get an E+ seat is to book a Standard Award? If I call the 1k desk will they be able to get me at E+ seat with a Saver Award? How about the exit row seats?

Bob

any premier should be able to get E+ on a saver award, never did it on the web but reservations can move you to E+ (they should also be able to move a traveling companion to middle E+ next to you even if they are not premier).

It's a bug on the website that's been there for years. The site will not show you E+ or exit row seats even if you're eligible for them. Book the Saver award and then call reservations to get an E+/exit seat assignment.

I just book the ticket and don't choose a seat, and lo and
behold, the computer gives me an E+ window. I don't
recall that ever failing, but if it did, it would be easy to
call the 1P desk (don't bother with the 1K desk unless
there's a big wait) and get things fixed.

I actually found a way to work around this on the website. If you start out by selecting a "standard" award ticket, then you will see E+ seats show up when picking your seating assignment. Then, instead of booking the itinerary, click "change itinerary" and then select "saver" award instead. Now when you go through the booking process the system "remembers" the E+ seats you previously chose and allows you to reserve them. It still doesn't let me see exit row seats, but I can live with that.

Bob

Very clever workaround! I've always just used the one mentioned by violist, i.e., I just don't select a seat at all. It defaults to E+ for me and if I don't like the seats, I just phone to get them changed.

However, next time I use the web to book an award (can't do that very often, as a lot of my awards are open-jaw international), I will try the workaround of checking standard awards first.

blee, that is a tremendous tip! Thank you very much! Now I just hope that the savers appear when I change the online itinerary!

I was about to post a thread on how irate I am that United still has not fixed the bug, but this tip works well. Thanks again.

blee's workaround DOES work!
 

EDIT: see correction below.

I tried blee's suggestion (see post #5) on a Saver award trip I booked online just a few days ago. Unfortunately, in this case anyway, it didn't work.

So, it was back to the old routine of NOT selecting any seats. The system picked some very nice E+ seats for me, as it usually does.

EDIT: When I booked the Saver award, I did not look for blee's post, and therefore I misremembered what s/he said. I thought that the "green seats" would appear, when in fact what happens (now that I re-read this thread) is that the system remembers the seat selections you made on a Standard award (which you cancelled without booking). I went through the steps of a booking again just now to verify what happens. It DOES work as described! ^ ^ ^

By the way, it's "new search," not "change itinerary." :p