emcampbe

IME, these days, even flights that look really empty in E+ have a history of filling up quick, and many/most end up being full of close to it. I flew CVG-DEN a few weeks ago, booked about 3 and a half weeks prior to departure. The three in my party were the only ones in E+ at booking, and the map remained that way until about a week and a half out. At that point, it progressively filled up. By departure time, it wasn't quite full, but only a few seats left. Just one data point.

Also, just because July 4 may be a light travel day, lets not forget that the airlines are quite aware, and reduce capacity as a result. Don't know specifically for 4th of July, but LH does this as well -
some flights may not run certain days around the holiday, which can push up bookings, and some routes may not run, pushing connections that might normally run through ORD, say, to IAD.

If you all all want to sit together, best bet is probably to take whatever seats there is the option of now, either free or paid. Yes, at check in, UA might allow you to select E+, or it might not. At that point, there may be adjacent seats, or there might not be. And the worst risk in not selecting a seat is that should there be a need to DB people, those without seat assignments are the highest risk for this. Small chance, of course, but if that's definitely a thing you can't do, might be better to select seats now.

YMMV, of course.

aacharya

OP - take the two aisles in 46 and call it a day. Almost impossible that the middle seat in between you all will be taken. Plus with a lap child, that availability to the bathroom/galley is pretty nice.

Or take the two aisle seats in 44 and 45 to save at least the best seats that have a decent recline and not so close to the bathroom.

Cruss74

I'm seeing 36BC open on the United seat map.

StuckinITH

That's my experience too. On many of my flights, two hours before departure there are many empty middle seats in E+ and then I see the standby list getting longer and longer and all those middle seats get filled. Happens also on international flights which makes me wonder where those people come from. I guess from misconnected flights.

laxmillenial

Misconnected flights, passengers potentially doing a standby for an earlier flight, non-revs seeing an empty flight and going on a vacation with family are a few reasons.

pt flyer

How important is it to sit next to each other? You risk that happening when you don't have seat assignments. You will have to decide where you are comfortable the risk/cost relation. Don't count on people giving up seats that they did pay to reserve to accommodate.

Cruss74

Hopefully OP sees this. 36BC are still available...

drewguy

IME it's tour groups or people on various types of consolidator tickets that don't get advanced seat assignments (or perhaps don't know how). I fly to China a decent amount and more times than not when E+ is fairly empty at T-24 it fills right up with what are clearly groups in the final few hours.

enfinity

Update: I called UA--the rep was able to reserve two seats for us in row 34. Thanks for all the great feedback!