Popolo

Hello all - my first message here!
I flew UA transatlantic recently, and was assigned a comfy Economy Plus seat even though I bought the cheapest fare available. I know that some folks actually pay for this upgrade. Is there a point in paying if they bump you up anyway?

Flyboy

My guess would be that they oversold the straight coach section so some people had to be pushed into Economy Plus and you got lucky. When that is not the case, seats can sit empty in Economy Plus unless some of the coach pax are willing to pay for an upgrade on the flight. I recently had the same thing happen on a flight to Hong Kong. The point in paying is to assure yourself of a seat in Economy Plus, since there is no assurance of an upgrade to that section on a routine basis.

gail

We had 4 seats this summer on regular cattle car economy and at airport these seats disappeared". Two of group got Economy Plus seats (although middle of row seats) at same fee - my guess is that no one wanted those seats. And I doubt anyone on flight paid less for seats than we did.

On other flights, at check-in they tried to sell us Economy Plus seats but we declined. They probably gave them to someone else for no added cost.

ms_go

Flyboy is exactly right. If there are more passengers than seats in regular economy, then some will end up with seats in E+. But these days, that is likely to happen late in the going after United has given people sufficient chance to 'buy up' at check-in. And if regular economy isn't full, then the chance of a complimentary bump is pretty small.

Popolo

Thanks for all the responses. They made a lot of sense. We were a party of 3 (2 + child), I wonder if it made a difference. Thanks again.

tmh

The normal way to get to Economy+ is if you buy the appropriate class of service (Y, M, B); if you are in the FF flier status (Premier and Prem Exec) or if you have a 'pass'. These are all avilable at ticketing.

The next group is what others mentioned - buyup at the kiosk when checking in or when coach too full.

AA has now figured out there is money to be made on the day of flying. They offer empty FC seats as a buy up at check in.

mrwunrfl

When you got your tickets were you put into regular economy seats? Were the 3 together? When you flew in E+ were all three of you together? They may have put the three of you together in E+ if their only other choice would have been putting you in three single seats.

Popolo

I bought "S" class. When we checked-in, we got 3 E+ seats.