Originally Posted by Foggedaze

Hopefully I can shed a little light here. Or at very least join you in the darkness while contributing something. This afternoon I made a change to my reservation to BKK from FLL. I did this because Delta had changed the schedule leaving me only 45 minutes to make my return connection, NRT-DTW. They at no cost modified my return. Last October they made this same schedule change and allowed me to modify my return for the same day. So when asking today I also asked if they could CHANGE MY DATE OF DEPARTURE AND DATE OF RETURN to the day before. They not only did it but i even got a $.50 credit on my credit card. This was worthy of comment because the new itinerary was $900.00 higher, and as most of you know, Delta will not even honor a rate deduction without charging $250.00. Anyway, when choosing my new seats I got the same EC seats I paid for each of the flights between Narita and Bangkok on the a330-300, (Seat 12-C) The legs between Atlanta and Narita were now on a 777-200LR instead of the 747-400 on which I had bulkhead exit row 36 seats which I chose myself online. Now when booking my new seats for the 777 with an agent on the phone, she told me gave me exit row 44c both ways. I was delighted and hung up. I immediately went to review my reservation online to notice that I had 44C out bound, no seat assignment for the return, and it would not allow me to choose that seat or any other in exit row 44. So I called Delta and the phone rep advised that those seats were blocked off, she had no access to them, and was clueless as to how anyone assigned them to me. But, she could offer EC seat 31J ( my favorite Y class seat on this aircraft) at no extra charge!! I took it and ran. So, with regard to the rhyme or reason behind the availability and assignment of exit row and EC seats, it would appear there is not much. I booked 2 exit row seats online, had a phone agent assign me an exit row, while another phone agent told me she couldn't and assigned me a free EC bulkhead seat instead. (I will not be a SM until I complete my next flight) Seems more about luck and timing than rhyme or reason. Happy Travels.