u/Ashitsmashit

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TL;DR:

Booked an extra legroom seat on an Etihad A380 flight from Toronto to Abu Dhabi. Flight changed without notice, the seat became unavailable, and I was reassigned to a bulkhead seat without being asked. Confused about seat comfort, bulkhead downsides, and price differences.

I recently booked a flight from Toronto to Abu Dhabi (EY2 2, A380-800) for July 29 and paid extra for a seat with additional legroom. Later, I ran into an issue where my booking showed “extras in the cart are unpaid.” When I tried to fix it or change my seat, the system kept redirecting me, only to show that the seat type I originally selected was no longer available. This left me unable to choose any seat at all.

After attempting to resolve this through chat support without success, I called and spoke with an agent. That’s when I found out my flight had been changed without any notification. Because of this change, the aircraft configuration no longer offered extra legroom seats, which explained why I couldn’t select one.

The call itself was frustrating—the agent was very difficult to understand, and I had to keep asking him to repeat himself. Initially, he said he would refund the extra legroom fee, but instead, he reassigned me to seat 49K without asking for my input. I also couldn’t access the seat map through the Etihad website, so I had to check a third-party site, where I saw that 49K is a bulkhead seat.

I accepted it for now, although I did ask if I could switch to an aisle seat with extra legroom. The agent said I would lose the seat entirely if I changed it. What’s also confusing is that this seat supposedly costs $169, but I originally paid $113.31, so I’m not sure how that works.

Now I have a few questions:

1. I’m 5'9" and a bit on the heavier side—would a standard seat be comfortable enough, or is a bulkhead or exit row significantly better for legroom?

2. I’ve read that bulkhead seats don’t have under-seat storage and that passengers may be moved if bassinets are needed. Has anyone experienced this, and how much of an issue is it?

3.The pricing difference and lack of control over my seat selection seem off to me—does this sound normal, and is there anything I should do about it.

Thanks in advance for any advice!