Thanks ACYYZ/SD.

That's always been my thinking, and it's what happened at NRT that time.

We always preselect our seats at time of booking based upon the scheduled metal for the flight, BUT, we always check for other metal that is or may be used occasionally, and ensure that our seat numbers work in all likely metal.

It may be paranoia but it sure helped keep us out of trouble in NRT.

We just sat on the sidelines as a seemingly endless list of passengers were being paged by the gate agents for seat reallocation.

Of course it also helps to check-in at the earliest possible minute.

I'm sure check-in and gate agents could care less about fare class. They just check-in everyone with a valid seat allocation and then start figuring what to do do about those who may be left over.

Now my fingers (and toes ) are crossed for our PE flight to NRT!