Recheck your seat selection before you fly

I've learned to check flight details carefully as soon as I get an email about a change in a flight. More than once, the flight has changed to a smaller plane and my seat has been reassigned to the last row of the plane. If I act quickly I can find an acceptable seat that doesn't come with a fee. This is on AmericanAirlines, and they have always sent an email when there is any change.

Worse, we had revenue but discounted Business Class window/aisle on an Emirates flight with 2-4-2 seating-what you might call Domestic Business Class. Without telling us, they put more important people in our 2 and gave us the two Middle seats. When I complained in writing, they said, tough luck, sucker. (Honestly, 250K lifetime isn't that many these days.)

This has happened to me on my last four international flights with United. I usually get a text message on the plane change, but not necessarily the seat. If it is for me, as a 100k flyer, I can usually get my economy plus tickets. However, the last four times I flew, I had my husband with me on one flight and 5 other people on another flight that I was using my status to get economy plus tickets. It was a pain to get everyone economy plus tickets on the fly. Luckily I check about a week prior and then the day prior and have been able to make adjustments. Although, nobody gets to sit together.

Thanks for the reminder. I have been religiously checking my flights but not the seat assignments.

Very good reminder - I feel like this happens all the time on Delta! Didn't have issues with the international flights doing it last year, but it seems to happen domestically a LOT.

Yep, they do that.

I have 4.7 million lifetime miles. I fly 150K miles at least every year now (way down from my previous job where I flew nearly every day). I fly business class on most of my flights as fully paid with cash, not upgraded seats (not a small person, like the extra room). And yet they still move me around when the plane changes. I have been lucky in that they never have stuck me in a middle seat, but it is annoying to choose the seat you like/want and find you are not in it. I usually just take the seat I end up in since it is too frustrating to spend hours on the phone complaining.

Having their card means nothing. All they really care about is how much money you spend on actual flights with them.

If you travel often, ExpertFlyer.com's aircraft change alert service can come in handy for this. Even if your airline doesn't notify you of a seat or aircraft change, you can get a notification through ExpertFlyer about it right away.

Mind you, with ExpertFlyer you have to pay extra for the aircraft change alert feature. They have other alerts that are free (such as being able to have one free seat alert going at any given time. The seat alert will notify you if a window, aisle, or other preferred seat type becomes available in case you weren't able to select such a seat when booking), and other alerts/features beyond the aircraft change feature that come with the $10/month fee.

Aircraft changes are common, and being among the first to know about one - and first to then call or login to the airline's website to select your preferred seat - can really be helpful. Most recently, I went through this with British Airways multiple times! They changed the aircraft on me SEA - LHR flight 3 times between booking and actual departure. By getting notifications, I was immediately able to go in and put myself in to seats I wanted with each aircraft change, even selecting better ones than what I initially had with the last aircraft change.

Having the card gets you a better boarding group and also makes it easier (for now) to book on miles. Also keeps your miles from expiring, which was the reason I got it. (Delta miles don't expire but they don't seem to cover places that I want to go). I used to get boarding group 11, now I get boarding group 3. Slight exaggeration, but some flights seem to have a lot of boarding groups and I was always at the end. I was surprised that on my 2016 Italy trip I was able to book for 30K miles each way, just a few days before departure. That sort of thing was not possible before I ponied up for their card. Of course that's all changing now and not for the better. Hope to squeeze in a fall trip on miles before it does!