Exit Row
 

How can you book exit row seats when purchasing a ticket?

Para

Exit rows are often designated Preferred seats, held for Delta SkyMiles elites. Purchase of a Y or B fare should get one access.

You can get these if you a medallion or book a ticket on M B or Y class, I don't now if H class gets you exit row access

Y is full fare economy. What is B fare?

Also are they ever made available to regular people like me?

Yes, when you purchase a very expensive coach fare (as others have mentioned, Y or B). B is the second-highest coach fare class after Y.

Any unclaimed preferred seats are released within a few hours of departure for anyone to use.

Regular people??? There's a joke in there somewhere!! :)

Haha... I will normally do ~20 segments a year so I never qualify for any medallion status. Making me just "regular" lol...

Segment run! :D

Unless you want to wait until two hours prior to departure of your first flight:

1) On the 75E from JFK-LAX/SFO and vice versa 36D is available to all
2) On the A319 I have seen 9B and 9E open to everyone
3) On the 75X I have sometimes seen 19B open to all

This is your best answer OP.....often can snag these at the airport kiosk.

If you are a SC member, sometimes an agent will also snag you one of those seats. I lost my status for a while and some SC agents would be willing to book me in an exit row on my return flight if the seat was available.

9A now seems accessible to everyone on A319s...

So they are released exactly 2 hours prior to boarding.... That is when I will check in from now on!

If your 20 segments are all done out of airports with SC's, might pay you to look into a SC membership or a Platnium Am Ex. For a while when I lost my status, I would ask the SC if they could put me in an exit row (and if I got a ride to the airport sometimes it would be more than 2 hours before the flight) and could get them to put me in an exit row (or at least give me a better seat that wasn't on the seat map as open) on the return flight as well.