Nothing for something

Northwest Airlines’ Coach Choice program, which lets you pay $15 for an exit-row seat in economy class, has been roundly criticized as a money grab by the bankrupt airline. But no one has ever accused the carrier of taking the money and giving its passengers nothing in return. Until now.

Reader Michael McGuire reported that he had flown on from Los Angeles to Minneapolis an Airbus A320 recently.

“I noticed the exit row aisle seat was available for $15,” he said in an e-mail. “So I jumped on it.”

His seat assignment wasn’t in the exit row, though.

“I went from 20D to 8D — right past the exit,” he said. “There was nothing special about the seat.”

Indeed, a look at an A320 seating chart suggests that only rows 10 and 11 have extra legroom.

The Web site description for Coach Choice appears to indicate that a seat like 8D would not be classified as Coach Choice.

So what’s going on? There are three theories.

First, this could just be an error (hey, I’m willing to give the airline the benefit of the doubt).

Second, its Web site description hasn’t caught up with the ‘new’ expanded definition of this unpopular program, as described in this recent article (a real possibility).

Or third, this could be an intentional strategy to quietly “expand” the number of seats that economy-class passengers have to pay for.

Yeah, I know. There I go again with my conspiracy theories.

Full disclosure: I’ve sounded off about Coach Choice in a previous posting (as have a lot of other travel bloggers). I think the consensus is that we don’t like it. But Northwest is certainly entitled to do what it takes to fly out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Whatever is going on, Northwest might want to consider clarifying the language it uses to describe Coach Choice. McGuire probably isn’t the only Northwest passenger who thinks he got nothing for something.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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