That’s right, a fraud.

In case anyone doesn’t fly United and doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Economy Plus is a marketing ploy to try to get people to pay for reasonable legroom.

What United has apparently done is to increase the seat pitch in most of economy (i.e. the seats are closer) and advertised their normal seats as “better”, a.k.a. Economy Plus.

When you board any United flight these days, they will pester you about not moving forward beyond a certain row, because [i]these passengers have paid more for the privilege of more legroom[/i] or other variations on that theme.

[b]What I can tell you for a fact is that this is a bald-faced lie.[/b]

My girlfriend and I just flew United from Philadelphia, PA to Jackson, WY and back. We bought our tickets on Orbitz, under the same booking. We paid the exact same fare for both tickets. No “upgrades” were made, and no frequent flier numbers were entered.

When I tried to do seating assignments, no mention of Economy Plus was made, and the flights were almost full, so I just made the best choices I could, and hoped to make changes at the gate.

On the flight from ORD to PHL, coming home, I had seat 25A and she had seat 9A. Seat 9A is an exit row in the Economy Plus section. I had asked earlier about switching seats, but the gate agent didn’t have anything but 12A available, and suggested I negotiate with another passenger directly, to trade seats so I could sit with my girlfriend.

I sat in 9B, and waited to negotiate. I informed the flight attendant of my intention. She suggested that I should try to negotiate a move back towards row 25, but did not otherwise object to my plan.

When it became apparent that there would be no other passenger with whom to negotiate, she began to object to my occupying the 9B seat, on the grounds that I had not paid for Economy Plus seating. I told her that was incorrect, and that we had both paid the same exact fare.

“I don’t know anything about that. You have to talk to the gate agent, who can do the upgrade for you.”

So, I went and talked to the gate agent, who immediately said, “9B is open, just take it. Tell the flight attendant we charged you for it. Wink Wink.” (Literally – she winked. Twice.)

I thanked her and went back to the plane, where the flight attendant said they would need “evidence” of my upgrade. I told her she could talk to the gate agent, and that it was all taken care of.

Eventually, they finally worked it out amongst themselves, but I found the whole experience quite annoying.

My advice to any and all travellers is to refuse to pay United for any stupid Economy Plus “upgrades”. It’s a crock, and a waste of money.

Not fun.

I decided to replace the faucet on my bathroom sink tonight. The old faucet was too short, too close to the back edge of the sink, and had some other design defects which have annoyed me for 2 years now. I was at Ikea tonight on other errands, and finally realized that the best place to find a faucet to fit my Ikea sink was at Ikea, not LowesDepot.

This is my old faucet, from Price Pfister.
[img]http://www.pricepfister.com/website/documents/Products/PRD_11rod_15664_42-h5fk-large.jpg[/img]

It does not extend high enough, or far forward enough. Worse yet, the way the head is designed, if I want less than FULL flow, it likes to make a big “bubble” of water instead of a nice stream. All that aside, I’m not really a fan of single control faucets.

I went with the Enskar:
[img]http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/55497_PE160605_S4.jpg[/img]

It’s going on this Hollviken sink:
[img]http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/27691_PE098055_S4.jpg[/img]

Which lives on this cabinet:
[img]http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/23878_PE108603_S4.jpg[/img]

It’s all very nice. At least, I like it.

But what I discovered is that the stupid flex hose supply lines I have under there don’t fit the new faucet.

[b]&)(Q!@$&%()!$%[/b]

And of course, there’s nothing in the wordless pictogram instructions that Ikea gives you, that says anything about the size of the fittings. All I have to go on are the straight pipes they supplied, so I’m going to have to take those with me to my local (read: expensive) hardware store and get the right parts.

It never fails. I start into a project, and halfway through it I discover some stupid thing that prevents me from finishing it when I have both the time and inclination all gathered together in the same place. So now my bathroom is a shambles, I have no faucet at all, and I will have to rush around tomorrow to get the parts I need.