I book my tickets 7 or 8 months ahead of time. For our summer '08 trip to Maui, our flights changed about 8 times, which resulted in me calling Delta to get the seats confirmed again.

About 2 weeks ahead of the trip, I stopped getting emails saying that the itinerary had changed, so I assumed all was well. When I went to print out our boarding passes, I noticed that not only had our seats changed again, but that we were no longer together. My two daughters were together in one row, my husband was in another row, and I was in a third row. I called Delta, but there was nothing they could do until check-in.

They did manage to seat me next to my husband, but about 5 rows behind our daughters. Luckily our children were teenagers and they could be left alone, but I was a bit peeved that they didn't try to keep the seat assignments.

I've already booked our summer '10 tickets to Maui. The schedule has changed twice already -- once 5 minutes and the other time 2 hours. But I'm able to see/accept the changes, and confirm my seats, online now. So at least I don't have to call Delta each time.