United Airlines United paid upgrade set ripoff Nationwide

Below is the response from United Airline. They admitted taking away the seat, stating that "Seat assignments are not guaranteed." so even when you pay for an upgrade, they do not care and will move you out. I had to file a complaint to get both refunds back. If I did not file the complaint, they would have taken my   money without a care.

United Response:
Thank you for contacting United Airlines. 

Please forgive our delayed response. We are committed to responding in a timely manner and are doing everything possible to optimize our efficiency. We appreciate the time you took to let us know about your experience. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you experienced as a result of being reseated on flight UAXXXX. 

Seat assignments are not guaranteed. United makes an earnest attempt to honor preselected seat assignments, however seat assignments are subject to change. We sincerely understand your disappointment and we regret that your expectations were not met.

Your travel experience should reinforce your decision to choose us. Your feedback is more crucial than ever and your comments will be shared directly with our corporate senior management team for review and necessary corrective action. 

Additionally a review of your travel plan has confirmed that both the first and secondary EconomyPlus fees of $XX.XX was promptly refunded to the original form of payment.

My apology cannot erase what happened, but I hope it helps to know we take your concerns very seriously. We are grateful for your business. 

Please accept my apology and allow us the privilege of serving you again on board a future United Airlines flight.

Regards, 

Michelle Hill 
Customer Care Manager
7648403

Nothing was left out:

1. Gate agent statement “I put priority on putting a family together, your set purchase does not guaranty you an isle or window set. If you don’t like it, I will refund your money”

2. I am a frequent flyer and have my boarding pass sent to the phone. So no I do not have a printed copy. But, the manager of customer care at the Airport did confirm, the changes the gate agent made, and sent a report corporate, and I have a copy of that report

3. Your quote “Airlines will NOT move standby passengers into the Premium Upgraded Economy seats” you are kidding, I have flown a total of 1,938,545 miles in my lifetime with 3 major airlines. I could not begin to count how many times I have seen this or been given the premium seat myself.

4. The middle seat next to me was an open seat, in the first row after first class; the agent saw this as an easy/quick move without regard to my purchases.

5. I arrived at the airport 4 hours early, due to my daughter in-law flight leaving 2.5 hours prior to my flight and we drove in together, so your are again using a false excuse for your company.

6. No I did not get on the plane, than got off again. This was 35 minutes prior to take-off. And it is my choice as to how I want my bags to travel, not you, United employee.

7. No it was not a cheap ticket, And yes my credit card company did reverse both purchase charges, since United did not provide the service.

This is an example of why I am a million mile customer with another airline (Delta) and not with United. It is a shame what you did to Continental that was a good airline.

You are obviously leaving something out, what that is no one here knows.

First of all you never mention anything about what the Agent said when they said you now had a middle seat when you paid for an aisle.  All we get is that you paid again for a window seat.  If you had proof of payment and the boarding pass you printed out when you checked-in that should have shown your assigned seat.

Airlines will NOT move standby passengers into the Premimum Upgraded Economy seats, or at least will not move them in if they have to move someone else out.  They would move other people in regular economy first.  Figuring this is a widebody that has 3 x 3 seating, you talk about them only moving you but nothing about the person next to you in order to get the couple on board.

Then the we get to the point of your bags.

If your medication was in your checked bags..then that is 100% on you.  You are NEVER supposed to put things that critical in your checked bags.  Now, if these are your carry-on's.  This means that if your bags were left on the plane so you either got off to complain and were refused to be allowed to reboard, or you were such a disturbance on-board that they had you removed from the flight.

Out of curiosity what time was your flight scheduled to depart, what time did you actually get to the agent to check your bags and what time did you get to the gate to board the flight.   This is important for one reason...the one way this COULD happen is if you did not arrive early enough and your seat was "given away".  If that is the case then they did exactly what the terms of the ticket allowed them to do, and yes every other airline would do the same thing.

I am not really sure how your situation could be happened. If you paid for the aisle seat from your upgrade, what did you do when they said you were moved to the middle seat? Why did you pay again to be moved to the window seat? Did you try to get a refund on the aisle seat upgrade? How did you do that? What is your original ticket said? Was it a "deal" ticket which comes with a certain rules (i.e. no cancellation, no changes, etc.)?