Hello Hello:

Thru Travelocity, I purchased round trip tickets - Newark-Rome-Naples and back.

The Travelocity documentation states that seat assignments are 'made at the airport'. I'd like to try to get seats a little earlier than the day of departure. I looked on the Alitalia site, found nothing. I emailed the airlines about 2 weeks ago, and have heard nothing. Does anyone have any experience/suggestions on how to select seats ahead of time? (I'm not leaving until September. I know that it is VERY far in the future, but I'd like to know how to do it and when to do it)

Thanx,
joe

Call Alitalia. They have a US based number (which you should be able to find on their web site). I've flown them a few times recently and always got seat assignments months in advance.

Thanx for the thought, but...
I just called Alitalia, using the US toll-free number from their site. The customer service rep told me politely that I can only request seats two weeks ahead of time.

Any other ideas?

Thanx

Hang up and call back. That's often a good way advice.

You won't get seat assignments for the intra-Europe flight, but they should be able to do the EWR-FCO legs.

I don't want to make you paranoid but ...On our trip to Italy (DC to Milan) last summer we had seat assignments in advance. When we arrived the day of the flight we were told we had none.
We were very irritated with Alitalia (and codeshare Delta) who took away our aisle/window seats and put us in interior.
But we felt we had no recourse.

If you can get seat assignments 2 weeks ahead I think you should be fine & have a good choice of seats. Most Europeans don't bother.

Tourist or other? Try to avoid the rear of your plane. Alitalia often seats families there.