Changing seats on Delta

Is there a toll free number you can use? I find Delta agents very helpful for fixing this kind of stuff. I have also had luck with their chat feature.

Contacting Delta should yield results for what you are looking to accomplish. They will certainly be able to at least provide information about what occurred. Been flying with them for over 52 years and have been very happy.

It means it’s taken. This is the case for all airlines. You should be able to see all of the occupied seats from your account or once you are ready to choose your seat before paying.

What's the difference between "Occupied" and "unavailable".

From Delta’s website: “What does “X Unavailable” represent on the seat map?
Seats that are shown as unavailable on the map may be reserved to accommodate family seating, passengers with disabilities and crew members.”

That’s a good question and idk. Someone else here maybe able to answer that or you could research it.

BTW - I just checked my flight for next June on British Airways and I noticed there are a couple of seats with an X (unavailable). In this case, there are in row 1 and to me it means they are being blocked. I can only speculate those seats are only available to those with Airline Status.

I’d call Delta and politely ask for my aisle seat. I hope you have former aisle seat number so you can give the phone agent a timeline of your seats and changes to aid your conversation. I’ve always found Delta and United agents very helpful.

If you do call, I would be interested in their answer?…..thank u!

On United, unavailable means you haven't paid for that seating location. That may mean that it's an upgrade you haven't paid for (though usually on United that is shown with the price to buy it) and it can also mean that you've paid for a better seat, so the "lesser" seats are "unavailable" (shown with an X on United) even though they haven't been booked.

That doesn't make sense to me in your scenario though.

The only scenario I can think of is that the seats in the Comfort+ section are all booked, but perhaps those 2 middle seats are considered Comfort+ because they're in an exit row or another seating area with extra legroom.

I'm guessing because I don't fly Delta, but that's what I'd guess if it were United.

Is the commuter flight to Detroit on the same ticket? If so, is it in the same seat fare class? I'm wondering if the commuter flight is basic economy, if that changed the class of your international flight Seat. Good luck!

I think Pat is onto something. I am pretty sure I read something similar on Flyertalk.

Didn't raymonelee answer the question? Scroll up.

Not necessarily, since we are not given full information. This is why Pat has a strong case here.

I have more theories, but this is good for now.

Adding a segment should not affect the seat assignments on others. Perhaps there was an aircraft change. Comfort plus is not Premium Economy just extra legroom.

A call to Delta is in order.

For Delta, Comfort+ is premium economy.

No, it’s not. Delta Comfort seats are the first few rows in economy with about 3 inches more legroom. Delta’s premium economy product is called premium select. It’s not nearly as good as premium economy on other airlines.

Delta’s Premium Select is their PE and offered on their new aircrafts (A350-1000s & A330-900neo) and possibly retrofitted on some of their older aircrafts.

Premium Select is also on Delta’s older aircraft 767-300, 767-400, A330-200, & A330-300.

Delta Comfort Plus is an enhancement and Premium Plus is a separate class of service.

Occupied= someone has already claimed the seat
Unavailable= it's being held back by Delta

Flying back to France last New Years our biz class was nearly all unavailable. No offer to upgrade arrived and they wouldn't move us up despite both of us having
status, offering to pay, being in Premium Eco, etc. But I saw a lot of Delta employees on a vaca trip of some sort being moved into biz. Reward trips? Our crew disappeared after meal service and must have had a great time with their vacationing colleagues in the front of the plane. Good for them! Rewards well deserved.

OK! Here's what learned from Delta. Yes, it all has to do with my designation. I can choose seats in Delta Comfort Plus, but no other. For some reason upgrades and down grades are not offered.
The "unassigned" seats are seats held by the airports in order to accommodate families that show up without seat assignments, in order to be able to seat them all together.
She advised me to hang on to my Comfort +, but moved me to a window seat. She said those are easier to trade away than the (dreaded) middle seat. She was super nice. I did have to wait for an hour on hold, but I guess that's reasonable in this day and age.

So glad you ended up with a good résolution but a bummer that you had to spend an hour on hold plus the call time to do it !! Annoying.

Thanks for circling back with your results! Window is better than middle to me!

Glad it is resolved. Sorry you had to waste your time with this.

I did have to wait for an hour on hold, but I guess that's reasonable in this day and age.

I found that if I have a problem with Delta, I get faster results by using the chat function on their website rather than calling. I’ve waited for an hour to three hours before when phoning, but with the chat function, I can usually get someone within 15 minutes. And they are just as helpful.

Mardee, this is a dumb question on my part but was it a human you were chatting with over chatting with a bot? (and truly not sure I could tell the difference if they resolved my issue, lol).

Similar situation, sort of. I booked about July 2022 for a trip to Italy April 30 2023. I've been with Delta 20+ years and 'always' fly Comfort+ bc that's my 'comfort zone'. Don't remember the aircraft type, may have been A330 or B767 but there was a rather large section for Comfort+, i counted about 30 seats. At the time of booking in 2022, not only was pretty much the entire aircraft EMPTY, but the ENTIRE Comfort+ section had an "X" in each seat and when hovering over each seat the pop up said "unavailable". What ? There was no way I could book in that section so I went ahead and chose main cabin thinking i could change later. Nope. Engaged in 2 online chats, those agents didn't know why they had an "X". I called 3 times...2 of the agents said "hmmm, that's weird, never seen that before". Third agent said they are X'd and noted as "unavailable" because they are held for crew, etc...possibly families or persons with disabilities. I have NEVER seen these X's before but I get it for the reasons they stated but to have an entire section as unavailable ?

Called 1 more time to try & move up, the agent then told me that the Domestic portion is Main Cabin and the Int'l portion is Comfort+. Said it's "always" been that way. Nope. But..what they ARE doing now that is fairly recent is the chart that you use online to choose your flight times and cabin type has changed. The headings remained the same but you have to be careful in choosing your desired flight time because SOME, even though you are within the Comfort+ column, will state "mixed cabin" or will spell out "Main Cabin / Comfort+". Very annoying. Apparently I didn't see that when I booked. The agent was very nice and ended up moving me to a Preferred Seat and said that's the best she could do, which I appreciated and I'll be more watchful when booking next time.

Jeoffrey's potentially-dangerous spam link reported.

Mardee, this is a dumb question on my part but was it a human you were chatting with over chatting with a bot? (and truly not sure I could tell the difference if they resolved my issue, lol).

Pam, it's definitely a human. I can tell the difference, because they really solve the problem, and answer specific questions I have. The only problem with the chat is that they are dealing with multiple complaints at the same time, so sometimes they leave and come back in about 5 or so minutes, but overall I've been very happy dealing with them. And they've never NOT solved any problems I have, some of which were a bit complicated.