In the past month, I have been unfortunate enough to get the dreaded window seat without a window twice- once on Alaska 738 and other time on United 738. As someone who loves looking out the window, this really bums me out. In both cases, I tweeted about this with a picture of the window-less wall to the airlines' respective Twitter accounts, and the difference in response I got from both has been interesting to say the least.

Response from @AlaskaAir: We're so sorry to hear this. We will update our seat maps online to point this out in the future.

Response from @United: Sorry. We never guaranteed you will get a window.

Something something friendly skies...

Check SeatGuru.com That's a great source for viewing general seat maps for most major carriers. Among other things, it identifies the crappy seats that don't recline, get bumped all night by service carts or have a missing/mis-aligned windows. Don't count on it absolutely 100%, especially when airlines are in the midst of re-configuring, but it's mostly reliable. Travelers add their reviews of specific seats as well.
Then you can make a better informed choice when you select your seats.

I think the Friendly Skies went along with the Tulip...

Unless I see the actual tweets, I'm inclined to say this smells like fish.
That is certainly not a very professional response from United, to the point where I'm somewhat suspicious that it was actually posted.
Sorry, but..... not buying it until I see evidence.

And, frankly, many aircraft types from several manufacturers feature this issue. If you're partial to a window view, it would behoove you to do two minutes' research on any of several seat quality websites.

Wingtips56 wrote:

Check SeatGuru.com.

I know, I know. Both times I got burnt by not checking Seatguru in advance. I do it 99% times, the 2 times I did not, guess what happened

Um, it probably happened that way, which is unfortunate. I always check seatguru for no other reason than on Cathay even, the same row # on the same type of plane differs depending on which one. I always compare maps (seat selection on booking against seatguru) to determine the model I am flying, then select accordingly. I ignore (proximity warnings) because it's not relevant to how I travel, but the window with a view is the number one priority!

AA737-823 wrote:

That is certainly not a very professional response from United, to the point where I'm somewhat suspicious that it was actually posted.
Sorry, but..... not buying it until I see evidence.

I am not going to link my personal Twitter account here, but copy pasted tweet with personal info redacted-

@<handle> [...] seating does not guarantee a window. ^MM
10:50 AM

I got the no window twice, both on a DL MD-90 on ATL-TPA. It's really awful and I always wonder what the point is, I'm sure there are some folks on here who could enlighten us as to why.

KTPAFlyer wrote:

I got the no window twice, both on a DL MD-90 on ATL-TPA. It's really awful and I always wonder what the point is, I'm sure there are some folks on here who could enlighten us as to why.

Air conditioning ducts. I'm sure also a good place to run electrical from the floor to the overhead.

I know on some of the Mesa CRJ-900s, it seems the rows forward of the overwing exits in Economy have misaligned windows. Also, depending on the configuration, the last row on the right side is missing a window. I don't think SeatGuru mentions the misaligned windows ahead of the wings though.

AA737-823 wrote:

Unless I see the actual tweets, I'm inclined to say this smells like fish.
That is certainly not a very professional response from United, to the point where I'm somewhat suspicious that it was actually posted.
Sorry, but..... not buying it until I see evidence.

I tend to agree. I don't get the point of making up a fake tweet. But looking at the United twitter feed, nobody posting there would have responded in that way

https://twitter.com/united/with_replies

You can find his tweet if you search on twitter what he said the reply was, if you really want to see it. It is a little misleading the but tweet has that line in it.

Tweet 1 from United: We regret to see this and hope you enjoyed the additional legroom Economy Plus provides. ^MM
Tweet 2 from United: Economy Plus seating includes additional legroom, it does not guarantee a window. ^MM


I am also not going to post his personal account on here or what he said in the replies. You can find them if you want.

KiloRomeoDelta wrote:

Response from @United: Sorry. We never guaranteed you will get a window.

Jshank83 wrote:

It is a little misleading the but tweet has that line in it.

Understatement of the day.

While the OP didn't use quotes, he certainly implied he was quoting them. Shameful.

ALTF4 wrote:

KiloRomeoDelta wrote:

Response from @United: Sorry. We never guaranteed you will get a window.

While the OP didn't use quotes, he certainly implied he was quoting them. Shameful.

So the actual quote: "seating does not guarantee a window" is so different? It actually sounds even worse, in my opinion!

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

So the actual quote: "seating does not guarantee a window" is so different? It actually sounds even worse, in my opinion!

I searched on Twitter and saw the actual convo. Apparently this was a "preferred seat", *and* a seat on the window side. I don't think it's unreasonable for a customer to think that a "preferred seat" against the side of an airplane would have a window. And United *charged extra for this*. That's perhaps the most important thing here.

It's bad customer service any way you slice it. They shouldn't be doing this. At the very least, if they want to charge more for this seat, they need to make it clear that there's no window. To charge more, it's got to be a clearly better seat than the one right behind it. As it is, it has more legroom but no damn window! That's at best a wash for a lot of people, and wouldn't be worth an extra $35. At the least, the OP should be refunded his $35 if he wasn't happy with a seat he wasn't warned had no window.

spacecadet wrote:

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

So the actual quote: "seating does not guarantee a window" is so different? It actually sounds even worse, in my opinion!

I searched on Twitter and saw the actual convo. Apparently this was a "preferred seat", *and* a seat on the window side. I don't think it's unreasonable for a customer to think that a "preferred seat" against the side of an airplane would have a window. And United *charged extra for this*. That's perhaps the most important thing here.

It's bad customer service any way you slice it. They shouldn't be doing this. At the very least, if they want to charge more for this seat, they need to make it clear that there's no window. To charge more, it's got to be a clearly better seat than the one right behind it. As it is, it has more legroom but no damn window! That's at best a wash for a lot of people, and wouldn't be worth an extra $35. At the least, the OP should be refunded his $35 if he wasn't happy with a seat he wasn't warned had no window.

Caveat emptor

spacecadet wrote:

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

So the actual quote: "seating does not guarantee a window" is so different? It actually sounds even worse, in my opinion!

I searched on Twitter and saw the actual convo. Apparently this was a "preferred seat", *and* a seat on the window side. I don't think it's unreasonable for a customer to think that a "preferred seat" against the side of an airplane would have a window. And United *charged extra for this*. That's perhaps the most important thing here.

It's bad customer service any way you slice it. They shouldn't be doing this. At the very least, if they want to charge more for this seat, they need to make it clear that there's no window. To charge more, it's got to be a clearly better seat than the one right behind it. As it is, it has more legroom but no damn window! That's at best a wash for a lot of people, and wouldn't be worth an extra $35. At the least, the OP should be refunded his $35 if he wasn't happy with a seat he wasn't warned had no window.

While the Op expected a window seat with extra leg room, he effectively got only the extra leg room, which is invariably what Economy Plus gets. You still pay $35 for the middle seat. The manner in which the Op introduced the tweets is misleading at best. United's response, as it turns out, while not favorable for the Op, wasn't rude..

Given that the majority of passengers nowadays close the window shade as soon they sit in the seat never to open it once in the trip -- it's hard to say that this seat was worse than the one in front or behind it when the only selling point of EconomyPlus is more legroom and in seat power on some aircraft (some aircraft have in seat power in all rows).

It sucks to get that seat when you think it is a window, but United upsold the seat advertising more legroom not a better view. If United sold the seat with guaranteed window view I would agree with the OP, but that's not what happened.

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

ALTF4 wrote:

KiloRomeoDelta wrote:

Response from @United: Sorry. We never guaranteed you will get a window.

While the OP didn't use quotes, he certainly implied he was quoting them. Shameful.

So the actual quote: "seating does not guarantee a window" is so different? It actually sounds even worse, in my opinion!

The actual issue is implying it was a quote, but misrepresenting the United response.

I religiously check SeatGuru, and would hate to be in the OP's position; I'll sit in the back row if its the only window seat available. But it doesn't excuse mis-representing what United tweeted back. Just put it as-is, and let the audience decide. Anything else comes across as, well, trying to manipulate the situation into his favor.

That's my 2 cents.