Dear all,

I made the mistake of purchasing Delta Basic Economy for my wife and I's honeymoon flight to Paris (didn't read fine print until it was too late). Given my wife's extreme flying phobia, this was a stupid idea to say the least. I should have forked out the extra money to be able to select seats together.

I called Delta a few days before the flight to discuss the best strategy to get seats together. The agent said that there are plenty of open seats and that, while she could not guarantee us seats together, as long as we did online check-in as soon as the 24 hour period began we had a great shoot of getting seats together. I followed her advice and checked in. We received two middle seats close to each other but NOT seats together. At first, I assumed that this was because only middle seats were available. I went on Delta.com and checked the available seating by beginning a new ticket purchase and it showed plenty of unreserved isle and window seats. If these seats aren't available to me, why would they be available to any other basic economy passenger during the online check-in process? I assume that these represent simply unsold seats that are not likely to sell in the less-than-twenty-four hours before the flight (particularly for the current price tag). I am wondering if that means that there's a good chance that my wife and I will be able to sit together tomorrow? Will they be able to reassign us to empty (unsold) seats at the check-in desk? If not, then hopefully we can simply move to the empty seats. My back up is to start offering money for someone to switch. Once my wife begins to have a panic attack, I am hopeful that someone will take me up on my offer.

I'm sorry if my questions here aren't all that coherent. I guess this post is mainly a desperate cry for reassurance and can perhaps serve as a lesson for anyone thinking about book basic economy tickets as a couple or family.