How Airline Status Protects You

We’re on a trip. Well, we should be. Aren’t yet. Last night, due to hard frost and no de-icing equipment in San Francisco, our flight was canceled.

When we first booked, I held the reservation for Rick and myself. Later, my mother decided to go on the trip, too, so we booked her a separate airline ticket.

Because we were paid first-class customers, we were re-booked in status order.

1. I’m a Premier Platinum, the third of United’s status tiers. (Earnable tiers, lowest-to-highest: Premier Silver, Premier Gold, Premier Platinum, Premier 1K, and then there’s Global Services, which is an entirely different category.)

2. Rick’s a Premier Silver.

3. My mother, however, has no status.

Thus, when there were no more seats, guess who got rebooked into economy?

Yeah, so that happened.

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.