Oh boy, who's gonna tell him?

I recently received an email from Customer Care detailing how seat requests are just that - a request. You "requested" a first class seat by paying for the privilege of requesting it, but the carrier contract states seats are not guaranteed, ever. They can downgrade you, but hopefully will reimburse you the fare difference - at what point they calculate that difference is a whole other issue; Of course you'll need to request this fare reimbursement as well.

In the past this seldom would happen, but nowadays, I am fairly mistrustful of any of it, particularly on AS these days.