jaxbill

What is the best e-mail address to use to send in the complaints?

I actually bypass IAD every week, which is 5 minutes from my office, and drive to DCA to fly US. With this new seating policy, I might as well book UA out of IAD despite the fact it will be a regional jet. The CRJ700 has E+ and 6 F seats. Not as good as an A319 in my view but there are no middle seats on the CRJ. With US's new policy, I was almost stuck getting a middle seat on a flight I just booked despite the fact that many choice seats were still available.

There's just no way to spin this as a good thing for FFs. It's insulting when US pretends they're doing us a favor.

kimharp

This is completely misleading. As an SP I was still not able to purchase a choice seat until 24 hrs. before my flight, in line with everyone else. Preferred members can only reserve a "preferred" seat, which now run out quickly, and then you're screwed.

CPRich

An interesting observation, and explains why I didn't notice this last week, when the same thing happened.

I went to check in last night and was back in 18A, with 11F and a few up-front seats as Choice Seats all that was available. I selected 11F, a little better, declined checking in and waited until this morning. Checking in again, 2D is now a Preferred seat, which I chose and checked in.

So the strategy seems to be to select the best seat available but don't actually check-in/print your BP until the last possible moment, as additional seats free up.

Still a p.i.t.a. for elites, but there are some ways to mitigate a bit of the pain.

ajlowe444

[email protected] - this is the one I used.

steve65341

What type of aircraft is this on ?

SS255

Playing chicken with the seat maps during the check-in window is not a practical solution for elites to manage their seat assignments.

CPRich

E70
This elite prefers to log in a second time and sit in 2D rather than just accept 18A, so I don't know how you can make that blanket statement. And I just landed on the flight, so I can confirm that it is indeed practical. If you don't want advice on how to make a bad situation better, feel free to ignore it. (though it doesn't even appear to apply)

I sent my email to both Customer Service and the DM contact. Keep the letters coming.

BizJet

This is getting increasingly frustrating. I just booked a 4-segment roundtrip and couldn't get decent seats on ANY of the four flights. On one, I was able to get an aisle seat in the last row. On the other three flights, there were no preferred aisle/window seats available. But on all four flights, there are plenty of choice seats aisle/windows.

This is really, really ridiculous.

vincentvan

I emailed both the CP desk and Customer Relations this morning. I'll post their reply if it is anything not previously posted.

uva185

I received a reply to my complaint today.

Dear Mr. uva185:

Thank you for contacting Customer Relations at US Airways. We regret
your dissatisfaction with our Choice Seat program. The Choice Seat
program is similar to what we previously called "Preferred Seats."

Preferred members can still reserve a seat anytime after booking travel
and have the added benefit of exclusive access to exit rows.
Non-Preferred passengers may purchase Choice Seats during Web check-in
from 24 hours and up to 90 minutes before departure.

We are always interested in the opinions of our passengers, especially
our Chairman Preferred members. Your comments and concerns have been
documented and will be shared in a written report to our executive
management team. This report is a summarized record of all passengers'
concerns regarding our policies and procedures. In fact, many of our
current policies, procedures, and positive changes are a direct result
of customer feedback.

I am confident your comments will receive thoughtful evaluation. We
appreciate your business and would welcome any opportunity to serve your
travel needs.

Sincerely,

Xxxx Xxxxxx
Representative, Customer Relations
US Airways Corporate Office

jaxbill

Got the exact same reply today - word for word except for my status, which isn't Chairman's Preferred.

Looks like they've setup a system in Microsoft Office to automatically generate these responses with our names and status.

ArizonaGuy

So respond back and ask them to actually address your concern/complaint, not send a blanket form response.

I've often found that the first response will lack substance but pressing the issue at least gets someone to actually read my email.

pbuntrock

I've been hanging on with US, but this may be the beginning of the end. I'm a CP and I do love the upgrades but I always counted on a good seat if not upgraded. Now I can't count on the good seat. My flying patterns have changed and I might not make CP next year, so my chances of sitting in a bad seat just went way up.

First there was the removal of the no black out dates for awards. Then they changed the awards so that its very hard to get cheap awards flights. Then they cut flights out of Boston my home airport. Now this...

I fly alot to Asia so *G is important to me as my company makes me fly in coach. So, my new plan is to credit my DM account until I make GP. Then start to acccumulate points on United, I can pay for E+ until I have status. Then next year I can move entirely to United.

I burned 700k in point this year as a response to the awards changes so I'm free in terms of points, only 30k left.

I had about 225K EQM's last year. I guess US does not want my business.

SS255

LOL!!!!!

sbtinme

A **MAJOR** word of caution on this approach. In the past month, I've been in two situations where runway conditions mandated that the pax load be reduced by 20% or so ... which means the airline has to actually DENY boarding to folks who are already at the gate and waiting to board. At an outstation, this can pose a massive hassle.

Both times, the pecking order was to pull folks in the reverse order of CHECK IN TIME. In other words, the folks that didn't do OLCI were the first to get pulled. Next were the last folks to do OLCI.

Pax were livid in both instances, but those planes weren't pushing back until the pax load was lessened.

Just something to keep in mind when playing with very last minute OLCI scenarios.