Usually when something breaking happens which involves a major change (in this case assigned SW seating), the company usually puts forth the initial announcement where the details of the changes are released later. Yes, that leaves many unanswered questions...
I also experienced this back when I had a free Washington Mutual checking account from the early 2000's, news got out that the bank went down during the 2008 financial crash, and a short while later Chase announced it was acquiring WaMu's assets from the federal government. WaMu customers received word that "Wamu is becoming Chase". There were so many questions back then and I recall Wamu's bank failure and how impacted customers were going to be able to bank going forward was on page 1 of the news for several days...
The details answers to everybody's how, when and what questions came through later.
It was then that branch rebranding and remodeling occurred. Gone were WaMu pods. Then after that, I got a mailer that Chase sent to me announcing that it was totally restructuring its checking account options that included scrapping WaMu's free checking option. At that point, I (and many others) opted out and moved my money away from Chase to an independent and financially healthy credit union that supported free checking and also emulated the former WaMu business model of friendly staff, and cost-effective products.
Re: the Assigned Seating announcement, Chase will likely announce details of how it will handle unused boarding perks such as Upgraded Boarding benefits later. For now, I would continue to enjoy the benefit.
More details to come and think there will be more announcements made during SW's September's Investor Meeting.
