How do I bulk delete field collection items that are part of a content type?
I created a view that lets us filter by username(so that we can delete for a particular company/user) and course dates(so that we can filter courses with selected dates). It will delete all fields within the field collections for the selected courses. Courses display in rows for each date instance, e.g. if a course has many dates then it displays in a new row with each date field collection item.

I created a content view with a relationships to the field collections-field collection items, author and content field of the field collections attached to my content type for which I selected Delta=All).

I then added fields with the course title, date, venue, location and field collection item ID and displayed in a table with the VBO set to delete the selected field collection items for each instance.

I have filter criteria for the content type, username(author)-exposed, and field collection item for the date-exposed so that I can filter by date to delete old items.

I hope I was able to explain the solution that worked for me so that it can at least offer a clue to someone else with a similar problem.