Originally Posted by RealHJ

That is classic and almost always happens with KE. Very often other airlines as well (I just get it with KE all the time as until DL started charging YQ for KE, it was the best value). Most frequently they can 'see' the seat, but then it won't 'confirm'. Usually takes one or two levels of internal escalation and a good 10-30+ minutes to get it to work. I was told before that the way how they are supposed to search and book KE flights, as it is in the written manual, is outright wrong and never works (I wonder if by design...just like so many other things that have been always 'broken' and never get 'fixed'). The smarter agents know the correct way to do it, but most don't. So they escalate until someone tells them or shows them how to do it, or does it for them - which is some way of which they are not instructed or told how to do it (all manual and in some different system, I believe).