[hamami]

While I didn't have terrible experience comparable to some recent events, I also want to share mine. Last year when I was flying United I printed my boarding pass from one of the kiosks at the airport, and it assigned me to a seat where there's slightly more legroom, normally I believe these are upgrade seats, but I assumed there's no other seats so it gave me that one. After I and several others boarded the plane, one of the agents comes to me and wants to see my boarding pass. At this point it's a little awkward for him to ask for this but OK whatever, I give him my pass and he walks off with it without saying a thing. A minute or two later he comes back and gives it back to me and doesn't give me any explanation why he asked for it in the first place. 5 minutes later another agent comes to me and says in a rude manner I sat in someone else's seat and asking me to leave that seat. Well guess what, the first agent swapped my boarding pass with a different one before returning it to me. I didn't make a big fuss about it but let them know that I knew what they did. In fact I'd be fine if they just explained the situation and said there's been an error with the seat assignment. They're not just violent and inconsiderate but also very good con artists..good job losing a customer for good..

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

O_O, so let me get this clear—the first agent literally changed your seat assignment on their own and gave you a new boarding pass with a new seat number without telling you anything?

Wow.

[Mithaldu]

They didn't "change" anything. That would mean it was a mistake of omission in informing him.

They stole his boarding pass, replaced it with another one, lied to him about sitting in the wrong seat. This was done in the hope he'd be stupid enough to think he misread his boarding pass.

I'm not sure how official such a document is, but he might've even be able to sue them for forgery or at least fraud.

[MR4D]

The only way I've found to protect against this is by being paranoid.

Whenever someone asks for my boarding pass, I show them my phone, while the paper copy is safely in my pocket.

[strictnein]

I've always printed two boarding passes and kept them in my carry on. I've had gate agents walk away with my boarding pass in the past and simply never return.

[hamami]

yes I've thought about this as well after the event, now I keep a printed copy in my pocket and use the one on my phone in case something like this happens again (on a different airline)

[mongol]

I have no words...