I book my (mostly) corporate travel through a "travel Portal", some travel agency that handles all of my companies airfare bookings. For whatever reason, it won't allow my summit status to be recognized when booking the travel, thus, I cannot get into the first four rows at the time of booking as far as seat assignment. I just gained summit status at the end of 2010, so a couple of days ago was actually my first booking under my new found glories.

I've been a reader for some time, and thanks to all for your info regarding this and that on Frontier. I'm new to the corporate travel arena; I had 0 status points in my account as of the end of October, 2010, and I was summit by the end of the year. I fly almost weekly and always on Frontier, as long as it makes fiscal and time-sense. I've found a lot of useful information on FlyerTalk.

Anywho... I logged in to Frontier today to find the SummitDesk number so I could change in to Stretch for my flight this Friday. At the time of booking, I was assigned 5A; not a bad seat, but not stretch. I figured a quick call and I would be moved just about anywhere that wasn't already taken. To my pleasant surprise, I was already placed in 2A for both flights of Friday's RT to DEN from PHX.

Is this typical? Should I expect this in the future? Should I check each time since I can't book those seats automatically through my 'agent'?

Thanks to all, and consider this my introduction for Matt, from Phoenix.

Welcome to FT! Hope you have good experiences here, and on Frontier.

I have a very similar situation...I'm Summit, and while my corporate travel network recognizes my status and lets me book exit row, it won't let me choose stretch. So far I have *not* found myself automatically upgraded like you have. Three things:

(a) You can (of course) always call and request a seat change. If you use the Summit res number you shouldn't have much wait, if any.

(b) The new website will hopefully allow you to change seats on an existing reservation. Old Midwest Airlines flyers could do this, and many of us really miss this ability since moving over to Frontier.

(c) You can change seats at check-in for free as Stretch, and while it's always possible Stretch will be full, it's rather unlikely there would be no Stretch seats available if you check in ahead of time on the web. This is what I usually do, but many of my flights are on Ejets.

Currently, the only people who can pre-reserve Stretch are those who buy the Classic Plus fare (not very many) and Summit flyers who book directly with Frontier or who book elsewhere but then call Frontier to be reassigned. So at 24:01 before departure, it's very likely that many Stretch seats are open. Most likely you'll still find open Strech seats when you check in as long as you don't wait until the very last minute.

I don't know if/when we'll be able to choose Stretch via indirect booking tools like a corporate travel department or system. But hoepfully the website upgrade will allow us to change seats. In the mean time, you're very likely to be able to get Stretch when you check in ahead of time, or if you don't want to chance it you can call.

I believe if you don't request a specific seat (1-4 ABCDEF) the system will not assign those rows since they are blocked. I've always been able to get Stretch seats by requesting the specific seat (2C, 4D, etc) number. If you default to generic "aisle" or "window" you won't get a Stretch seat, at all. Travel agents frequently have traveler's preference in the profile simply as A, or W. That won't automatically assign a Stretch seat unless the travel agent chooses the seat number instead.

When reviewing seating for outbound flights the night before departure, if a Summit or Ascent is not checked in online and not already in a stretch seat, they'll be moved up. At least in my experience.