Upgrades are based on availability. Rude Person
 

Hi all, i flew with my parents on JFK - LAX route last friday after treating them on a trip to New York. I purchased 3 round trip tickets in Business Class. I love the premium service on UA. To me, they are by far a million light years better than AA which I have for the last few years been flying their AFS route between LAX and JFK. Since it is my parents first trip out of california for 7 years and first time to NYC, I decide to buy them business class seats. They were impressed.

After 10 days in NYC, we headed home. We were a bit late to the airport and my mom and dad are slow walker. After clearing security, they both were walking as fast as they could as the boarding had already begun for a little over 5 minutes. When we got to the gate, the gate agent was paging our family for final board call while there were a few people waiting by the gate. I think they were trying to get upgrades. So when we got there we showed the gate agent our boarding passes and were welcome to board. Since my parents are "moving slow", after we collected our boarding passes, we were still at the gate when the gate agent announced that business class has checked in Full. One guy was heard loudly while we were still at the gate. and here is the conversation between him and the gate agent.

Passenger: I have been waiting here for 2 hours and you won't even upgrade me?
GA: I am sorry but business class is full
Passenger: You upgraded those 3 people even they showed up late???
GA: I am really sorry but they were not late.
Passenger: I don't care, i am going to talk to your supervisor.
GA: Sure but I must remind you that if you do not wish to board at this time, I will have to cancel your seat.
Passenger: FINE, what is your name?
GA: <<gave her name to the unruly passenger>>
Passenger: I will be sure that you no longer work for United.

While we were still on the jet bridge, this guy was very upset the fact that we "stole" his business class seat. Hello buddy, we paid for the seats. So he came charging down and I told my parents to move aside and let this guy pass. I was assisting my mom walk because she is the slowest one and my dad was behind us. When the guy get near us, he asked my dad for his boarding pass. My dad does not speak English so he didn't know what he was saying and as he turned to me, the guy took the boarding pass from his hand. Adding to the fuel after looking at the boarding pass, he was pissed. The purser on the flight came out to the jetbridge and check out what is going on. This unruly passenger told the purser that this CHINESE guy is not even an elite and yet he was upgraded. I was mad to hear that because we don't need an elite status to be in business class, because I paid for those seats.

When I heard that, I yelled back at him and said, "I paid for these tickets so the gate agent didn't have to upgrade us three. Perhaps if you wish to be in a better cabin, you would have purchased a ticket in there." He said, "Look, I don't know where you came from, but I am a 1K and you are not even an elite. You should go back to CHINA and not taking up all these spaces in my country and look at this, he can't even speak English, that's why our country is so f***ed up with all the illegal immigrants here."

The purser acted upon it and said, "Sir, you are out of line and I don't think you should board this plane. I ask that you remain here and the captain will have a talk with you shortly." She further asked us to continue on boarding the aircraft. Once we boarded, we were welcome on board. This guy was never seen again as he did not board the plane with us. If he did, I can't guarantee that he won't get hurt. The purser personally came to us during the flight to apologize for the outrageous comments from the passenger to which I said, thank you for helping and she did not have to apologize for something she did not do. I wrote United a very nice and postive letter commending this purser and told UA that the gate agent did nothing wrong in case the passenger complains.

It upsets me when the race card has to be played. Come on, just because you are an elite, does not make you above everyone else. Sorry that you didn't get your upgrade and if you really want that seat, don't be cheap, buy it. Airlines can only upgrade you when there is a seat available. Upgrades are not guaranteed. When you don't expect it, you won't be disappointed when you don't get it. IT is uncalled for when he said all those things. I am sure it was just the heat of the moment but it really hurts. I came to United States 15 years ago. Served in the US Marine Corps for 8 years. I am just as an American as he is. I am glad the purser took the appropriate action and made our flight enjoyable.

To the credit of UA, their service on transcon premium service exceeds my expectation. I hope they keep up the good work.

Thank you for reading this post.

What a dissapointing experience for you and your parents :td: :td: :td:

Hope this guy gets a few kicks for his rude words and mentality. He is no more entitled to this country than you, your parents, or any one else who immigrated here. Racism just disguists me and I am very glad he was not allowed aboard :(

Sorry to hear you were so rudely treated by a real jerk. Unfortunately, FF status sometimes brings out the worst in these sort of people.

Kudo's to the UA employees for handling this ugly situation the best that they could.

Wow, I'm not sure I coudlve controlled myself if that happened.

I'd probably just as heatedly talked to him as you did and call him a few choice words myself...I would rather get to my destination on time then get kicked off a plane :)

thanks for reading the post. Technically, he was not kicked off the plane as he never stepped foot inside. He was denied boarding. :D

I was really mad and am glad the purser was there to "mediate" the situation or I would have had my fists landed somewhere unwanted.

If there had been opportunity, once he took your father's boarding pass, I would have been very tempted to call the airport police with a complaint of theft and battery.

Wow sorry to hear about your bad experience. I'm in awe over your patience in this matter, I assure you that if that guy grabbed a boarding pass out of my parent's hand he would be staring at the ceiling of the jetway real quick and I probably wouldn't be flying.

I hope they pull his 1K status, he is an embarrassment to the rest of us.

I learn from the Marine Corps to never resort to a fight whenever possible. In addition, the purser was already coming toward us when the boarding pass was snatched from my dad's hand. I probably would have done something had the purser not been there. We were only 15 20 feets away from the jet bridge anyway. And I am very glad that the purser did come out because if I hurt this guy, I would not be allowed to board too and what about my parents. They would feel ashame as they have always teach me to be patient even during difficult time.

This is disgusting and absolutely ridiculous. I like to believe that most 1Ks I meet are usually more intelligent and friendly than the average person and it has held pretty true in general.... But I agree, that was completely out of line and I hope he got stuck in JFK for a long period of time....

Agreed. It doesn't matter if you could or could not hurt him, but if you took swings at each other, even if he was the one instigating the fight, you would probably have been de-boarded too....

What a great combination: racist and a jerk.

I wish you hadn't had this experience. But you took the high road - perhaps no surprise given your parents' ethos and your Marine Corps service.

Thanks for this post - glad to see there are folks like you out there.

Kudos as well to the purser on this flight (and, presumably, the captain) for taking care of the situation and protecting the security/peaceful atmosphere onboard. ^

And I applaud you for it, I'm pretty even tempered but if you mess with my family I snap, I'm glad you didn't.

Sorry your parents were treated like that I almost wish I could teach that guy a lesson, I believe our elders should be treated with respect and it's sad we see people do this kind of thing in todays society.

In my opinon, the correct call on the part of the purser would have been to call security, not the captain. Perhaps that is what happened afterward.

I really wish I could consider that this post is a troll, given that the poster has little history, but after what I saw earlier today at IAD, I don't have any reason to think that's the case.

It might be difficult for UA to tell a 1K or UGS to go elsewhere, given the loss of revenue, but the alternative might be an even-greater loss.

There is no reason to treat either UA employees or other passengers rudely, even if it's a return in kind. What can it accomplish? Easy words for me to say when I'm far away from the field of battle, of course.

Meh. 1K is just an indicator of how many miles your company flies you. Sometimes, idiots and losers get hired into jobs that stick them on airplanes, perhaps as some kind of positive karma for their families who don't want to spend any more time around them than necessary. :)

I'm 1K and I'm incredibly intelligent, handsome and well-spoken, so I guess the ranks of 1K are filled with all types of people. :D

Super :td: :td: :td: to the guy who did this to your family.

Congratulations to you for refraining from punching the racist, self-centered jerk. You are far more patient than I might have been in that situation.

Seriously, I know travel can be stressful, but ...? There's no excuse for that kind of behavior. I hope that guy isn't an FTer.