Lax-lhr
 

Hi guys. I am no regular UA flyer but have an upcoming LAX-LHR flight (18/4) where I am in Y and currently put in 39E:(. The flight on seatcounter shows Y9 but I cannot select any other seats on UA's booking system (obviously being *G with TG doesn't help in this case as I have already input that info).

My trip starts from DEN and I am wondering what are my chances to switch to an asile seat in E- when I check in or before that?

Many thanks

This information is 'generally' irrelevant to your question. It simply means that UA is willing/able to sell AT LEAST 9 additional Economy seats.

On April 18, the seatmap for UA 934 is pretty full. The flight is showing Y, B, M, H, Q, and V as all 9's. W, T, and S are zeroed out.
I can see that seats 41/42 A and B are available.
*G will NOT get you into E+, but I don't know why you can't select a different seat.
If I were you, I'd simply call and see if the seatmap that I pulled is correct and if you can be assigned either 41A/B or 42A/B.

If calling doesn't work, then you may well be more successful upon checkin or at the airport.
Good luck.
Dave

I'd ask about a re-route to minimize the torture, either on the direct flight, or via ORD or IAD.

Definately call to get your seat changed, 39E is not a place you want to be for over 10 hours.

If you are likely to do anymore international flights on UA, then I would recommend E+ access for $349. For one trip I'd say it's not worth it, but for two round trips, $87 per flight for the extra legroom, is money well spent.

Thank you bseller and UNITED959 for the prompt reply.

I just did a dummy booking on united.com selecting LAX-LHR on the day and flight I want. However I cannot see 41A/B or 42A/B that is open. Could this be because you are 1K on UA?

And how does re-route works with UA? I am on H fare for LAX-LHR. Would I have to pay anything for re-route?

Cheers guys.

1) Are you looking at UA 934 LAX-LHR on 18 April?
2) NO, it is not b/c I am 1K since 41/42 are E- seating which SHOULD be available to anyone.
I don't know the specific fare rules of your flight, but you may well be able to find a sympathetic agent to move you to a DEN-ORD-LHR, or DEN-IAD-LHR routing.
As 21HJ said above, consider buying E+ access, although E+ on UA 934 was pretty darn full too. I saw the exit row open in E+, but since you're not 1P or above, you won't have access to that.

Best, Dave

1) Yes that is the flight I am booked for.
2) Just got off the phone with the reservation ppl in London. The lady who took my call said that she cannot "see" that 41A/B or 42A/B open at the moment. Maybe they are seats "reserved" for assigning at check-in. She can only put a "request" that I would like a E- Asle seat.

But yea, 39E is certainly not a place you want to be for 12 hrs. Given it's also a day flight :td:

Interestly from

http://www.unitedairlines.co.uk/core...les/index.html

if you download the timetable of 1 march-18 may, 2008. On page 6 it reads:

Economy PlusSM
United was the first airline to offer up to five inches of
additional legroom with Economy Plus. This cabin service is
the most spacious economy seating in the industry and can
be found on all United flights. It’s available on a first come,
first served basis to all Mileage Plus members
with Premier® status or higher, Star Alliance Gold and Silver
members, and full-fare United Economy ticket holders.
For more information, click here: Economy Plus

When did UA removed the privilage of E+ access for *G again?
Can one argue from this offical release from UA?

IIRC, it's been over a year or so.
Not a chance. Not even worth the effort to make the call.
I can't figure out why the phone agents are seeing a different seat map than I am, but it could always be a UA.com bug.

Good luck with re-seating or re-routing.

Best, Dave

Methinks the best thing to do is to check-in early at DEN, no checked bags, and head to the RCC and ask the possibility of re-seating and/or re-routing with the RCC matrons.

There are some seats in E- (usually towards the back) that are blocked from preassignment by non-elites. (I believe some of the 2-somes in the back of the 744 fall into this category.) This could be the case.

There's a thread about it somewhere. It's pretty complicated IIRC, like, they're abailable to full fares and elites, or just elites. From various dummy bookings is was extremely difficult to a pattern, and agents didn't now either (of course).

Yep that's right.. There are 19 open seats in the back of the plane on this flight that I can see as a 1K..but none of them would show available to someone without status. There are also 59 open E+ seats... I might be inclined to buy the E+ access for $349.

Another thing you can do is call UA back and see if the CSR will "open up" 41A or B for you. They have the ability to do this and I have had this done even when I had NO status on any *A airline. All the CSR has to do is call the seat desk or a supervisor to open the seats up.

If that does not work get to DEN VERY early and go to the RCC and see if you can be re routed or have your seat changed. There is a DEN-IAD at 10:30 AM that connects to a lot of the overseas flights from IAD.

Hope this helps
Ben

This might be hard for all you UA FFs. Does any of you think/know if a non UA status person like myself check-in online 24 hrs in advance will allow me to access those "blocked" E- seats? Would UA "release" those seats by then?

If I do so, would i have to "pay a small fee" (as stated on http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,50446,00.html) if I want to have checked baggage? and would *G help in this situation? say I select my seat and queue up at the Priority check-in counter to have my bags checked and boarding pass printed?

Does RCC matrons have higher authorisation "power" than check-in staffs? For me whenever I want a seat blocked or the release of exit row seats on TG and SQ, the check-in staffs always pick up the phone and call someone (station manager?).

p.s. Sorry I really don't fly UA much. Thanks guys. I am learning^

Actually they typically release those rear seats 24-48 hours before the flight... don't wait to get to the airport... start checking the seat map 72 hours out. But at the very least, you will be able to select them during OLCI 24 hours before your DEN flight.

What does CSR stand for? and do you think if I call the US based number I will stand a higher chance (as oppose to the UK 0845 number)?

I think I found the answer- customer service representatives

Customer Service Rep.
Not IMO.

Best, Dave

I'd rather have no seat assignment than a bad middle E- seat assignment. I'm not sure there is a worse seat you could be assigned at check in.
I suppose the only risk is getting VDBed but personally I'd take the risk and try to remove my seat assingment.

I can't have agreed with you more and this is exactly what I did. I called the US international hotline and asked if they would "release" the seats but unfortunately she couldn't/wouldn't/can't be bothered..whatever. Then I asked her to take me out of the pre-assigned 39E (I confirmed by checking on united.com) as i also think that there's no worse seat than the back of the plane and stuck in the middle 5. As my booking is confirmed and I will check-in early with my *G status (and my DEN-LAX flight is on time), hopefully UA would not VDB me.

Thank you to all of you guys.

Any chance of a reroute to the nonstop DEN-LHR flight on the 18th? Plenty of E+ and E- aisles showing on that flight.

Sadly, UA is determined to shoot itself in the foot here. Since the OP is a TG *G member, he/she can't tie E+ access to a non-UA account. So, without obnoxious FF# switches back and forth on each leg at the gate, this isn't even possible. While there are some brave souls out there who will do this, it isn't feasible to vast majority of the people who might be affected by it. (I'm pretty savvy of such things, and I can tell you that I wouldn't deal with that hassle!) And of course, even full Y tickets won't make a difference.

Partner *A folks should be a great source of revenue for UA w/ E+ Access, but they'd rather punish them and not take their money. At the very least, there should have been a seamless way to make this work when the E+ access was removed.

Thanks for the info. Still learning. You are right, I wouldn't risk switching FFP cos if something "goes wrong" and the miles ended up in UA-MP instead of my TG-ROP then i would be kicking myself. One of the reasons I choose UA is for the miles (+ lounge + priority luggages etc). Anyway I don't fly UA enough really, last time was on a long gone route already (JFK-LHR).

But the re-routing is interesting.
1) How does it work with UA?
2) Do I have to pay?
3) Or if I re-route on the same fare class it's ok?
4) Or shall I say are all fare class re-routable?

Can anyone explain more than what I would imagine the answer to be:
1) Depends
2) It varies
3) Maybe subject to a fee
4) Obviously not if it's not UA's fault like you miss a flight due to poor connections

Cheers guys.

You know, this is a strange one. I can see that 39A/B are currently available.

Why can't you, the OP, just get onto UAL.com and enter your ticket number and change your seat assignment?

If you can't, I would wonder about the bona fides of this post.

I've heard of cash buy-ups being offered from E- to E+ upon checkin, if seats are still available.

Not sure what are the chances on a international flight like this, though, or how much it would cost.

what I have been told in the past
 

was that since the rule change gold star alliance partner travellers could not reserve E+ in advance, but would be given priority to be seated there (in E+) on the day of departure on a first come/first serve basis (seemed to be airport based at time of check-in)

Since 29 such seats are available, according to another poster, that sounds like pretty good odds.

My information is based on my being EB gold (SK) and connecting through SEA
on my way to/from CPH both before and after the rule change. I think there were at least 6-9 flight involved. As I was often arriving after a long flight from a timezone 9 hours away, I never tried online checkin, so don't know how that may/may not be impacted.

Hope this helped.

Previous thread on how to get E+ seating while crediting miles to another FFP:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=789044

What about staying unassigned until the day of the flight, and checking in at the airport? That may allow E- to fill up and UA would then have to put you in E+ gratis. Of course this comes with the disadvantage of a bad seat assignment.

I just tried to logon my itenary on ua.com and cannot "see" 39A/B available. I think again this is because you are UA 1K. I even tried to do a dummy booking and only 39E is available (the seat that I "gave up" yesterday).

As to thumbelina and bhmlurker, I just want an E- Window/Asle seat and not a middle seat that's all. I don't even want to try and hope for a E+ seat which I know I am not entitled for.

Thanks guys!

As a BD *G who flies a few times a year via ORD and onwards on UA, plus upcoming trips to LHR-IAD and an LAX-LHR I would happily invest in E+ access. Having read the thread and then the link to the above thread, I thought I'd give it a go and have just telephone UA reservations in the UK.

Their view is that basically that you *can* utilise the method in the above linked thread, but that typically there have been errors and miles posting incorrectly to UA that then cannot be transferred to another program. They advised me to either move full time to UA, or stick with BD and NOT buy access. I appreciated their honesty at least. The agent also put a note in my PNR for LAX-LHR to bump me to E+ if it is available.

Not the answer I was hoping for, but good service from them at least. ^

Hi guys, thanks for the advice. The seats did open up 48 hrs prior to my outbound flight on UA921. So I will keep checking for my inbound flight when it's nearer to time and hope to get a asile seat.

I have a question about the new intl B767-300. I have selected 28J based on the fact that on seatguru and seatexpert that it shows as E+ seat? however I couldn't find the seatmap on UA's offical webpage.

Can anyone confirm whether 28J/K really is E+? Just something I could look forward to.

Thanks a lot.