Originally Posted by
ashill
I think pretty clearly the gate agent to talk to would be the one for the SEA-SAN flight, but I'm rather confused why the customer service desk couldn't just help you. What else are they there for?
The exact phrase out of the CS desk's agent's mouth was "Have you talked to the gate agent there?". Where??
No, they clearly (to me) meant the SEA-SAN gate agent.
They actually didn't, but even if they had, that would have still made zero sense, as the updated (delayed) departure time was in 3 hours. No gate agent on the planet (of any airline) would be at their gate 3 hours before departure.
That is true. The seat map does not tell you much about available seats. An ExpertFlyer subscription letting you see the actual seats they're willing to sell is much more reliable. (Now once you're booked on the flight, you should be able to select an open seat. But they won't just book you on the flight based on unassigned seats, only actual availability.
The dispute about the seat selection was never about the number of available seats, but simply about which seats were actually available for me to select. The N gate agent was simply being difficult for no reason. It was frankly a mystery. She never disputed that there was a seat for me, but for some reason initially didn't want to put me into 17F. Maybe this was before she actually pulled up my reservation and she thought I was trying to get an exit row seat for free? But after she saw the MVP status decided it was fine?