I have been extremely lucky with seats on all my recent flights. Non status, i'd say 15% of time I have been upgraded, 50% of the time i have a bulkhead/exit seat (usually at the part where the business aisle meets the economy cabin (15m of legroom ) 30% of the time i get 3 or more seats (the best was on a completely full Air NZ 747, 2nd row middle 4 seats all mine (every other seat as far as i could see was full), I had to go to the restroom and come back and someone has poached 2 of my seats. I sit down and then I get asked if I want to go to business. I could see her from my business class seat was priceless. (I have no idea why this happened, I did have a nice chat with the check in agent, maybe the FA thought “hmm he had 4 seats, he could be important” and thus helped me out when i lost them).

On the rare occasion I don’t get a nice seat But its very rare, even when I don’t plan ahead (ie waiting on standby), still end up with a bulkhead or exit row

: ) now if only I had such luck on the stockmarket.