Purchased United tickets and regreting it already!

Keacc

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 14, 2004
We are doing a family trip (6 adults and 2 kids 5&7) to WDW Nov 9-16. I set up a budget which would include flying Southwest out of Midway (1hr 10 min drive). Tickets for Southwest won't be available until around May. Yesterday I saw that I could purchase tickets on United for about only $20 more per ticket (including luggage) out of Ohare (40 min drive). This would still be within my budget. I purchased Economy (not basic economy) because you can assign your seats when you purchase. I assigned seats 14A,B,C,D,E and F, plus seats 15C and D to our party. After assigning them I checked and the UA system didn't assign them. I called customer service and they said that because the flight was more than 6 months out, I couldn't assign them. I told them that I purchased these because I could assign seats. Their advice was to keep checking back. I told them that they could cancel them and refund my money. She said that she would have her supervisor handle this. After 1 hour and 4 minutes on hold, with only coming back to me one time during, they finally got my seats assigned. They assigned them to the wrong people in my party. But at least they are assigned. Now when I try to go back and assign them to the right people, it won't let me. Why oh why did I not stay with Southwest?
 
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As long as your party has those seats, it won't matter who actually sits in which seat.
I know that but if they switch aircraft and re-assign the seats, which does happen on UA, there could be a problem because they have the 2 kids (5&7) sitting on aisle seats by themselves.
 
I know that but if they switch aircraft and re-assign the seats, which does happen on UA, there could be a problem because they have the 2 kids (5&7) sitting on aisle seats by themselves.
as long as someone in your party sits in those seats they are not going to check who is assigned those seats. example kids assigned those seats but you put grandma and grandpa in those seats and put kids in seats grandma and grandpa were assigned. nothing will be said. where the problem would come if you decided to put mom in a seat that was assigned to someone not in your party as that person would want to be where they are assigned. does that help you
 


I understand that we can sit in any assigned seat for our party. I am venting about the UA website not allowing me to assign the seats when it is supposed to, and how long (1 hour and 4 minutes on hold) it took a UA Rep to assign 8 seats wrong after I told them who was to be in what seat!
 
I know that but if they switch aircraft and re-assign the seats, which does happen on UA, there could be a problem because they have the 2 kids (5&7) sitting on aisle seats by themselves.

All non-SW airlines do that FYI.

And you’ll keep an eye on the flight and you’ll notice if there’s a change in equipment, and you’ll call them to make sure the seats are ok. Easy.

Truly doesn’t matter who is assigned to any one seat in the family group.
 
Sounds like there was a glitch going on. That’s never happened for our united flights. So it’s not normal. When I am on a flight that I can choose seats for ahead of time, I do it as I’m booking and it’s done.

Any difference is a glitch, and I can either wait for them to fix it or call back later.



If you were inside of 24 hours of booking when dealing with this inisitalliy, you could have just cancelled the booking on your own and gotten the money back. Alas it’s too late now for that aspect of booking a US carrier.
 


I understand that we can sit in any assigned seat for our party. I am venting about the UA website not allowing me to assign the seats when it is supposed to, and how long (1 hour and 4 minutes on hold) it took a UA Rep to assign 8 seats wrong after I told them who was to be in what seat!
When you're (just) venting, it's probably best to state that. Otherwise, you're likely to gets solutions and reassurance.
 
I have found that managing UA reservations online is not a problem. That way, you can login regularly to monitor your reservations and seat assignments, and catch any changes quickly. This far out, you might see some schedule changes, aircraft swaps, etc. Even if nothing changes, it can be reassuring to know that all is well.

I have also found that UA is willing to work with their customers if these changes are bad for the customer. We have gotten free E+ seats when an aircraft swap left us without seats, and, another time, we got a much earlier flight time with no change fees when UA moved our scheduled flight to a later time.
 
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Legacy air carriers will change around the planes a few months before the flights based on occupancy. Keep an eye out for emails from United.
 
We had a similar problem with United about 10 years ago. We had a large group and seats didn't assign at all. I had to call in and make sure seats were assigned. I had the same experience - I was on the phone forever just to get 6 seats assigned.

I'd make sure you can see the seats on your reservation online. If you can't, call again and ask them to send you a confirmation showing the seats.

Cruisin5 is also correct - flight times change every quarter and that can mean plane type changes as well. Just mark on your calendar to check back online often.
 
Not being able to assign the seats is some sort of anomaly. Sometimes it's happens when it's a code share, like when it's an air canada flight. That being said it should have be United out of chicago as it's one of their hubs.
I book a lot of flights domestically and most via united, and while they are far from perfect, they don't seem to be any better or worse than any of their others. I like how their website operates, though it does seem to have difficulty when flight chaos happens from storms etc. Often it's a case of waiting 30 minutes or so.
 

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