SeattleDavid

In these days when people knock the airlines for making money everywhere and not giving loyal flyers their entitlements, I thought I would post about my brother's flight home yesterday from SFO-LHR.

They checked in early and despite having four assigned E seats they were given boarding passes for the same seats ten rows further forward in E+. No explanation was offered and no money was asked for. My sister-in-law's opinion was that E+ was very nice, but she would never pay extra money for it:-)

gre

Anyone in the group have any status anywhere?

I can't believe someone saying she would not pay for E+ on such a long flight. She must be tiny.

psubill78

No one needs to have status, likely someone else wanted to get seats together, and the agents moved your group of four, and they were lucky enough to get the 'upgrade' to E+. Happens all the time.

runnersmate

Could be a weight and balance issue as well.

mre5765

Her opinion is shared by most of the people in E- on long hauls. I've never seen the E+ cabin more full than the E- cabin.

My mother got E+ on one of the UX segments of an AC code share award ticket. When I attempted to get her seat assignments a day before the flight, the cabin was showing checked in full. The "buy economy plus" button was available, so I tried it. It would not sell her E+ because it was an award ticket (UA's 1st Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Allowed to Upgrade an Award Ticket Even for Cash). I then did a dummy booking and found that the E+ cabin was 95% unassigned. I told her she'd probably get E+ for nothing and sure enough she did.

UA: we leave money on the table and charge our general members baggage fees to make up for it.

At the very least, someone on a revenue ticket should be offered E+ for free before an award ticket. At very very least, a GM should be offered E+ before a non-member (Mum is Aeroplan).

snic

I wouldn't pay for it, and I'm just a hair less than average height. Leg room has never been my problem with Y seats. It's the sense of constriction from sitting soooooo close to those on one (and sometimes the other) side of you that I can't stand, and the recline that is so limited it makes your whole body ache to be stuck in that position for more than a few hours. E+ does nothing to alleviate either of those factors. I *would* pay for more recline. In fact, depending on how comfortable they are, I might pay for Delta's proposed new economy seats, which have some sort of privacy shell and are at an angle to allow window seat pax to easily access the aisle (although I don't think the recline is greater than typical Y seats).

Uppsala9496

I have an award ticket booked from ORD-LHR in a couple of weeks, and there is an E+ upgrade offer available for me when I look at the itinerary online.
Not sure I want to spend the $89 for it though.
It's $97 for the FRA-ORD leg home. Lost my status a couple years ago, and while E+ is nice(r), I think I'll save the money and suffer. I already had to shell out $25 to book over the phone because I have some *A legs on the trip.

gomike

If you are 2P which your profile says E+ is free.

Uppsala9496

Lost 2P in 2006 since I scaled back travel at work.
Back to a general member since I only put about 15,000 - 18,000 BIS miles.

dlwalt

They should feel grateful. I booked tickets and reserved seats last October and yesterday on our return (family of 5 using reward seats) from FRA - IAD, we got E instead of the reserved E+ because of the reconfigured 747.