Free upgrade to Economy X (I stole someone's seat)

[AisleSeat]

Flew CBR-MEL last Friday (I'm VA Gold).
I recall during my booking I'd selected 8D as I wanted an aisle (naturally) and at the time E was a free seat (F was taken).
At check-in I noticed my seat had changed to 3D, and I realised that somehow I'd been upgraded to Economy X. Win!

At boarding, there was a couple of ahead of me. The lady scanned her BP, all good and went down the jetway to wait for her partner. He scanned his BP and it beeped multiple times and was asked to stand aside. He wanted to try again, and once again, multiple beeps. I caught a glimpse of the display and it said 3D!

I said nothing, scanned my BP, all good and went to board. The lady who was ahead of me had already boarded and was in 3F. She asked if I was in 3E, I said no, and she looked at me funny when I sat in 3D.

Her partner finally got on. His seat was now 3E (though he took F). They spent a good 10 minutes talking about how he'd booked 3D specifically and were going to write a complaint. They didn't say anything to me at all.

I thought it was all a bit odd.

 

[ben95]

It’s a common trick that people traveling in pair sometimes use - block out the window and aisle and leave the middle seat empty. Middle seats tend to the be the last to fill so there’s a good chance they’d get the entire row to themselves. Worse case someone choose the middle seat they can always offer a swap and nobody is going to say no to a window/aisle over a middle seat.

In this case I think what happened was VA upgraded you to open up more space for free selection in the back for a full flight, obviously seeing the 2 person on the same PNR/last name etc the staff “helped them out” by moving one of them into the middle seat. Their trick didn’t work out this time.

As to their complaints, I’m sure they won’t go anywhere. At seat selection VA specifically say it’s not guaranteed and can change subject to operational requirements.

 

[antycbr]

Flew CBR-MEL last Friday (I'm VA Gold).
I recall during my booking I'd selected 8D as I wanted an aisle (naturally) and at the time E was a free seat (F was taken).
At check-in I noticed my seat had changed to 3D, and I realised that somehow I'd been upgraded to Economy X. Win!

At boarding, there was a couple of ahead of me. The lady scanned her BP, all good and went down the jetway to wait for her partner. He scanned his BP and it beeped multiple times and was asked to stand aside. He wanted to try again, and once again, multiple beeps. I caught a glimpse of the display and it said 3D!

I said nothing, scanned my BP, all good and went to board. The lady who was ahead of me had already boarded and was in 3F. She asked if I was in 3E, I said no, and she looked at me funny when I sat in 3D.

Her partner finally got on. His seat was now 3E (though he took F). They spent a good 10 minutes talking about how he'd booked 3D specifically and were going to write a complaint. They didn't say anything to me at all.

I thought it was all a bit odd.

Probably on the same PNR and booked 3DF on the hope that 3E remains vacant. Unusual that 3D was moved , the customary approach of staff would be to plonk you in 3E.

My theory:
Now that VA charge for anything in front of the exits they have situations no doubt where people who have no status and don’t want to pay for seat allocation outnumber the number of free seat choices. One approach would be to allow those purchasing close to departure (typically expensive fares) to choose from the paid but not EconX zone. That is a bit too complex for VA. So they would have moved you from Gold to Plat zone to accommodate Silver and Red pax in the paid zone.

 

[clifford]

My wife, a VA nobody (but UA Plat), unfortunately selected a seat near the rear door when booking the flight, as she expected to be able to enter and exit via the rear stairs.

However, she then had knee surgery and was unable to climb multipe steps, so wanted to change to a seat nearer the front door. So she phoned the guest contact centre and explained the situation to them, and they were happy to move her to a non-middle seat near the front.

So these kinds of things do happen. Kudos to VA. Couldn't see QF doing that for another airline's OWE.

 

[kevrosmith]

Glad to hear that VA proactively “upgraded” a status member to YX for free rather than just filling empty seats, including YX with late comers (non status) that hadn’t selected a seat previously.

And yeah, I have friends that try the window/aisle trick with the hope of a free seat. My approach is to always select a seat that you’re going to be happy with and not rely on fate to determine what might happen.

 

[kpc]

We often select the window and aisle...if someone sits in the middle we just keep our seats. +1 likes the window and I like the aisle!

 

[Human]

The only occasion I've selected the window and aisle for my wife and me was on a flight from Queenstown. I politely asked at the check-in counter whether the middle seat was taken and the agent told us that she'd block it for us so we'd definitely have the row to ourselves! I suppose that's easier on a flight from ZQN which I believe is capacity limited? I was VA Gold at the time.

But freely admitting that we'd done it definitely worked out well for us.

 

[Rich]

I must admit I find it very annoying when people do this, knowing of course that some here do, but I only ever look at it from the point of view of free seat selection as I typically fly QF. If the couple paid for seat selection they kind of have a point. You should get what you paid for or get a refund, but it hasn't been stated that they did in fact pay. And despite this I am not actually sympathetic. One wonders what they would have done if OP sat in the middle of them. Would they have then offered the window seat or just acted like they didn't know each other? I would pretty annoyed to have a couple either side of me if they wanted talk or pass things to each other.
Recently our family of 5 were on a Jetstar international flight and I was not prepared to pay for seat selection. My 15 year old son was put in the middle of a couple who chosen an aisle and a window and they offered/asked to swap with the window seat, which he did. My older daughter sitting next to me in the seat behind said she would have told them she'd only swap for the aisle. Basically just to p*ss them off. I admire that.