Q. re E+ rights
 

As the newest member of the 1P club (!), I do like how the seat next to me is blocked when I choose a seat online. My question is how far can we push this rule? Is it our RIGHT to say we don't want a poacher next to us? Can we insist that the FA check boarding passes and put the person back into their assigned seat? It sounds a bit snobby I know, but I chose that seat for a reason, and I earned those miles to earn the right to have extra space. Has anyone challenged a FA on this and won or lost?

Well, technically speaking, you're not guaranteed to have an empty seat next to you. It's simply blocked to prevent someone from choosing it in advance - any GA can override if they decide someone needs to go there.

UA certainly can't prevent someone from trying to poach the seat, although you can definitely ask the FA to check. However, it's a win/lose situation, cuz if you ask the FA to check someone who does indeed have a valid seat assignment, you're asking for a very awkward flight :).

In my experience simply stating "I thought my business partner was assigned that seat, can you check to make sure you are in the right row?" has worked every time. They pull out their boarding pass, feign surprise and move along.

YMMV of course.

Why would someone move back to E- to sit in a partially occupied row, to enjoy the ambience back there? I have moved back when no one was sitting in the E- row and there was the opportunity to lie down there.

I don't know about the role of a "primal instinct for territoriality," I do know that UA gave us the expectation that middle row seats would be blocked unless the plane was too full to allow that.

Adroit. And I imagine that most times it does not turn out that they mistook "B" for "D" or "D" for "B," nor that they were off by only 1 row.

As far as you feel comfortable doing so.

Enforceable legal "right?" Maybe you could look to the First Amendment, though there wouldn't be any government actors involved. But approached the other way, what is to stop you from saying just about anything you want other than "fighting words," profanity, insults, and the like?

Again, what's to stop you from insisting? Whether it will bring about the desired result or not is a different question, one that cannot be answered with certainty, especially since it may depend on how you go about it, the FA, etc.

Yes, and won.

As most of my longhaul seatpoachers have been dragged forward by FAs so far, the challenges were always quite unpleasant. Few FAs have been understanding and were looking for options acceptable to all parties.

About 5 times, I have simply been overridden by the FAs' powers and have lost one or two empty seats next to me. In all cases, I have written down the FAs' names and reported them to WHQ and to the purser.

With pax I was much more lucky - they mostly did understand that an empty middle on a longhaul meant something to me. So I cannot complain too much about inconsiderate pax here.

Attaboy... ^^^

IMO this should be part of the standard script... @:-)

On my recent TED LAX-LAS flight, three moved into exit row right before door closed from the back. Flight attendant asked one of them for his boarding pass. Then asked him to move to his originally assigned seat. I motioned FA the other two in the row besides me. PAX said they wanted extra legroom because the husband was tall. FA replied UA wanted more money to sit in E+ if they wanted to pay. They shaked their heads and moved back to row 13 very quickly.

Had the "E+ costs extra, the pax sitting there paid for it" been made and ignored, or was there no such announcement to forestall "poaching"?

I think those announcement are pretty routine now, or at least they have been in my experience over the past year. I have never heard an FA offer to accept payment from those already aboard for an E- to E+ switch? Have others?

I started a thread earlier this year about a GA boarding the flight, auditing E+ against the manifest, and charging poachers on their credit card ^

I haven't seen FAs charge however; they have always sent the offenders back telling them that they could upgrade for a fee 'next time' at the gate or via Mr Chicken

Perhaps now that they are testing credit card purchases onboard (I think, aren't they?), this will be an option in the future. If they don't want to pay, they go back, if they do want to pay, they can use a card and we can all know the $ are going to where they are supposed to be.

Your flight attendants would like to see all of you happy too. A seat chart for E+ & E- is being discussed. FA's were given the tools and authority to sell E+ but the program was put on hold. It wasn't a union thing ... just some procedural problems. Standby.;)

Good news! I have in fact in past offered to ring for an FA to charge seat poachers (not that I do it very often, but on at least on occassion I felt the need!) Now at least the FA will be able to follow through if I don't manage to scare the poacher back into E- ;)

No announcement was made on that particular flight. With all the advertisements on the internet, UA websites, OLCI and in-flight entertainment, unless PAX has never flown on UA, it is difficult to escape E+ up sell.