USPhilly

No recline? Less leg room? Mis-aligned window? No, they saved those enhancements for the preferred seats, for their most loyal flyers!

DCAorBust

I agree that the maps on the Intn'l 752s with Envoy don't seem to make a lot of sense. OTOH, it looks as though roughly 15% of the total seats are preferred seats (including exits), which seems about right to me. Sure, I guess rows 8&9 would be better than 11&12, but the difference is not going to get me in knots.

The former HP metal 752s maps make a little more sense as the 752 boards at 2L and for boarding/deplaning purposes row 12 is just as close to the exit as row 6, and closer than row 5.

Again, not perfect, but the A321s seem to have a little better logic with most of the preferred seats being closer to 1L than most of the seats for purchase (save for 7DEF).

Alphaguy

So how does an exit row help me, when I'll be traveling with an infant? Do i take the exit row and relegate the wife and child to row 11 on a 757? I'll have Dougie suggest that to his wife and see how it goes!

I'd tell US to fire the marketing guy, but its obvious all the smart ones left already...

phlwookie

Unless I'm missing something, which is possible since I've been working non-stop for 30 hours, buying a high fare doesn't get you a choice seat, you still have to pay. Right? My GSO-CLT-PHL one-way fare later today is over $500, yet neither that nor my status gets me a choice seat (nor an upgrade, since F is full CLT-PHL, which is fine, I just booked it two days ago). But these are the return segments on a nearly $1000 R/T coach fare. Do they really think I'm going to keep doing that just to pay $5 or so more for a better seat when I don't have to do that on their competitors - and if UA, get Economy Plus if I jump to them with status?

IADCAflyer

Note, that it is "as little as $5.00". Id bet $100+ on transcons that used to be given to us because we were loyal to the airline.

Oh, did anyone else notice this little nugget???

And, when you buy a Choice Seat, you'll board in Zone 2!

So, now you get to buy out the preferreds...

steve65341

The zone 2 part had actually always been the case as long as I can remember.

SS255

Because US would sooner sell the aisle and window seats to non-loyal customers and stick the Preferreds who book at the last minute and pay the most money in the middle seat.

Come on over to CO or UA, folks! The front part of Y is reserved for elites, and unless the flight is booked full or nearly so, the chances of you scoring an empty middle seat are roughly equal to the chances of you ending up in a middle seat squeezed between two non-elites who paid $5 on top of their $98 ticket on US.

skipdawg

This sucks bad. I just booked 2 r/t tickets and definitely had fewer seats to choose from. Where do we send complaint emails to?

SS255

The way I see it, the problem is that they are charging elites for choice seats.

IADCAflyer

This is not authoritative, but I found the following commentary from SeatGuru interesting....

----------------------

Choice Seat assignments on the aisle or window in the first several rows of the coach cabin will be available for as little as $5 per flight. Passengers may select a Choice Seat during Web Check-in (from 24 hours and up to 90 minutes before departure.) Choice Seats will be available to Dividend Miles Preferred members any time after booking at no charge. See usairways.com for more information.

dcpatti

I think this is out of date; US website says this:

If I want a Choice Seat instead of a Preferred seat, will I have to pay?

Yes. The price for Choice Seats varies by destination and length of flight, and starts at $5 per flight. Right now, you can only book Choice Seats when you check in. But later this year you’ll be able to book Choice Seats prior to check-in.

That said... I think it's really going to depend on the ratio of preferred seats to choice seats. This could work out really well, if they get the balance right: if non-elites cannot book into the Preferred seats at all till check-in (or maybe even later... not sure about the rules on that), and there's plentiful Preferred seats, then you're going to have a Preferred seat even if you book last-minute. Compared with the "old" way where you could get a choice seat free but last-minute bookings often had all the choice seats taken.

I would hope that they have more Preferred seats set aside on elite-heavy runs like DCA-PHX. And I would assume they've done a bunch of data mining to find the trends and history but just because I assume it, doesn't make it so, or doesn't mean those facts have been used to determine how many preferred seats are on a specific flight.

If on the other hand, there's a set number for the aircraft type, then you're going to be SOL on DCA-PHX whereas you'd have tons of options on DCA-MCO even if it's the same aircraft.

That said... some of the maps look like it's not a preferred section followed by a choice section; rather, you might have 2 rows of preferred, a row of choice, and another row of preferred. I think this is done specifically for overhead bin allocation. Elites carry on, and sometimes carry on the absolute max that will fit in one bag. If you put all the elites in one general area and board them all at once, the bin's full before Zone 1 is done boarding. I think the "mixed in" rows of Choice will help make sure the elites have close-by bin space. Sorry for the Choice folks though because they're always going to be separated from their bags.

me4yankees

I am thankful I'm flying DL now! But should I need to fly US and credit to CO as Star Gold, at least I know I have a larger selection of Choice seats! Yikes!

GoodOmens

It just seems like they took the least selling choice seats, made them "prefered" and are forcing everyone to pay for the real premium seats.

SS255

I think that the perception of this change is far more damaging than the reality will be. Then again, it's typical US Airways to not think things through and execute poorly, thereby driving away business.

If US wanted to do this right, they would have withheld the choice seats for the 24-hour check-in mark, so they would be available for elites who book close in. And elites should be able to book choice seats at any time in advance, at no charge.

Then again......maybe the Preferred's were snatching up all of the choice seats, making it more difficult for US to nickel-and-dime everyone else.

jerseyfinn

Agree, this is aviation reality today in a tough economy and an inherently difficult business segment. I think you hit it on the head about those late bookers who ( legitimately ) feel ripped off. To me, the paradox here is if one really steps back and looks at this without emotion, Tempe might actually be usiing it's brain here. The problem as you point out is more one of Tempe's poor past corporate track record of double-speak mirrored by diminished product/performance. It's hard for us to trust Tempe as that is something that one earns back very slowly.

Bottom line is that the real game for we elites is the hope for an UG to first when we fly domestic and if not, the morsel we receive are exit row seats which make our ( loyalty ) travel with US a bit easier. Likewise aisle seats simply make life nicer. It appears to me that Tempe is promising we preferred this. The real question to ask about those seat map designations is if they reflect the actual demand by non-preferreds ( ie last minute travelers ) or is it a best guess by Tempe. We preferreds should be asking Tempe what is a preferred to do who finds no "preferred seats" availible. Will Temp-e relase those unsold "choice" seats to preferreds? This to me, might be the only thing we need to worry about as preferreds. If Tempe can pull this off without impacting it's preferreds, I have no problem with any of this stuff ( thought like Mr. Reagan, I still say "trust but verify" when it comes to Tempe).



Barry