Try WN and tell us what you think . . . they make 100% wait until the gate.

Bigrob, this is standard practice when there are no e- seats left (which was indicated to you by system showing all seats are taken). System showed "X" for all E+ seats as you were not eligible to seat in them (I imply you have no status, otherwise system wouldn't offer you upgrade to E+).
Looks like UA is now considering putting non-status pax to E+ "kind of" op-up which is administered at the gate.
Having said that ual.bomb is proven to act strangely at times and it was unexplained system glitch :)
AX

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Try "self upgrading" to WT+ on BA and see how far it gets you! UA has every right, in fact, every obligation, to sell every last dime of extra revenue it can get out of E+. Which includes NOT letting E- travellers sit there for free.

Great job Liz. ^ ^
I think the option of paying extra for E+ at check-in is a very good revenue idea for United. I know Mrs. laser has paid this $99 extra fee before to get a seat in E+ on an 11 hour flight. She was happy and United is happy for the extra revenue.

Do the FAs keep pax from changing seats...
 

once the last pax have boarded? Why can't one just get up and grab an aisle, for ex?

For the same reason that you can't get up and walk up to C or F.

I try to "protect" the cabin for those who paid or are entitled to it. UA prints out an announcement for after takeoff advising pax how to be in E+ on a future flight and reminding it is "reserved" for E+ pax. Obviously they don't want us to get in a physical confrontation over a seat. IMO if people see "reserved for Economy Plus" on a headrest they KNOW they are going where they shouldn't be. :rolleyes:

But they'll commonly claim they didn't notice. :rolleyes:

Yes, that's true. I guess you are fortunate you never sit in the back. :D

Hey, it could happen! And I like E+ to be defended on principle! :)

I understand what you guys are saying and I agree with a lot of it. I fly probably 50K a year, but a lot is for business and my company books us on the cheapest flight so out of BOS/MHT that is often American, Delta or Southwest, but all my personal miles are on United so I try to keep my flights to that. So I fly a lot but don't have status so don't have E+ available.

Let's put it this way--I understand it in certain situations. Last year I was going BOS to LAS. I looked before I checked in and saw that there were a lot of E+ and E- seats open so when I checked in and was offered to upgrade to E+ for $70, I did it knowing that if I didn't, I'd be in E- since there were plenty of seats back there and there wouldn't be any of us non-status members that they had to seat up there, but I wanted the extra room for the long flight so I dropped the money. In this case, I don't have a problem--you want to pay extra for more leg room, so be it. If you don't want to spend the $70, then you keep it and fly in E-.

I just think it's a bit underhanded to do it this way that I had last weekend. My wife and I checked in online and the first thing that came up was that we were offered the upgrade and we said "eh--it's only a 35 minute flight, no need to spend $40". So we go to the check in part and try to select seats because we don't have assignments and see that E- is full and that E+ is nearly completely empty (maybe 2-3 people booked in it) but we can't take seats there because we don't have status. Now you have to understand that my wife doesn't fly often so she has no idea what E+ and E- are. All she knows is that we don't have seat assignments, people are being bumped at record rates right now and given that it's the day after Thanksgiving the chances for oversold flights are high and that if we get bumped and miss our connection there is no other flight to MHT that we can get on that night and she's starting a new job on Monday morning and can't afford to not get home on Sunday night. I tell her that she shouldn't worry, there are plenty of open seats and that United is just trying to get people to shell out $$$ for them before assigning them. But to her, she doesn't understand that that $40 was to get into better seats. She's just thinking it's an assurance to get on the plane. After getting to the airport, 2-3 times she said "go up to the gate and see if you can pay the $40 so we can make sure we get on the plane" and I told her not to worry, that we'd get on, which we did.

So my point is that in a situation like the first where there are open E+ and E- seats, by all means, charge people $$$ for the opportunity to switch to the better seats if they want them. I even understand that this past weekend, when E- is full and you check in, they can say "for a better seat with more leg room, you can pay X amount" and if the legroom is worth it to you, you take it and someone else ends up in E-. But if you check in online, decline the E+ upgrade, get to the normal check in, see all the seats are either occupied or have X's in them and you don't get a seat assignment, then I can see how someone who doesn't fly often would think that the flight is oversold and that they are going to get bumped if someone doesn't give up a seat. Such people, especially if they can't afford to get bumped, are very likely to go over to the gate agent when they get to the airport and offer to pay that money thinking that it is an assurance they will get on the plane, not just a better seat. I think that's a bit underhanded. I'm all for protecting E+ and every other perk that fliers with status get, but this doesn't seem like a way to protect that in this situation--it seems like a way to get a little extra $$$ out of people that aren't experienced fliers.

Which airline is that....?

Bigrob,

How many miles do you fly on UA per year? I believe that you can purchase a year's worth of E+ access for yourself and your traveling companion for $299.

That should give you access to pre-reserve both the E- and E+ sections. That way you won't be stuck in some crappy seat assigned by the GA at the very last minute.

http://www.united.com/page/article/0...omy_Plus&pos=2

My apologies, bigrob, but I must respectfully disagree. I don’t see where this situation was slimy or underhanded at all. While an inexperienced traveler might have assumed, based on your description of what transpired, that there was some risk of not getting a seat, UA never actually came out and said that you need to pay $40 or you won’t get a seat. They simply offered you the guarantee of a being able to reserve a better seat (or a seat period, in this case) instead of waiting for whatever the GA was able to give you. A traveler does have the responsibility to understand the situation they are dealing with, after all. It is, of course, preferable for the pax to be able to reserve a seat at the point of purchase or when checking in. In the situation you described, however, I would expect exactly what happened to occur. At least you were there to reassure Mrs. bigrob that everything would work our alright.

Thanks Warring. I actually think for the first time ever (thanks to US Air flights being pretty cheap out of MHT this year and my company booking me on two of those cross country) I think I am going to hit premiere status this year. I have a flight out to LAS next weekend after which I'll be up to 24,938 miles. But I made a purchase on United.com with my platinum Visa for $130 which should give me the 62 EQMs I need to get premiere. They say that the miles should post 6-8 weeks after the statement closes. 8 weeks from the date that the statement closes will be Jan 2nd, so if I don't see them on there by about Dec 20th, I'll contact Chase and if they aren't there by Dec 31st, I'll likely just trade in some choices.

It's such a pain with this corporate policy--I'd be willing to move to whatever airline we used if we had dedicated travel, but instead I've got 5K to 40K miles in like 5 different accounts. I used to use United for personal travel though and I try to take advantage of every offer I see for dining, shopping, etc. Most of my EQM come from the 5000 from the Plat card and from US Air flights for business. Right now I've got over 200K redeemable miles on United, but I bet I've actually flown on UA metal for less than 8K miles this year.