Gee, every other airline gives me a seat assignment. This one doesn't. I wonder if I should call someone?

DL gives seat assignments when you have not purchased a basic economy fare.

If it's within 24 hours, you can call DL and change to a higher fare class.

Fair point.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/searc...&starteronly=1

I look forward to your future questions being answered in the same spirit.

In an effort to derail the FT Snark� of this thread, I'll +1 the above suggestions, and observe that some seats are held back for gate assignment, so there's at least a chance they could end up seated together.

It also doesn't hurt to call reservations and ask. You might get a friendly agent willing to bend the rules if you explain that it was purchased via a channel that doesn't warn about E- fares... (though they may also charge $50 to take over the ticket).

Seriously

cant sit apart for four whole hours

I think the best chance you have is when silver medallions get upgraded to comfort+ seats at T-24, and checking in right at that moment to see if any of those seats are an option.

I really wish Delta would not sell these fares. They can't be making that much money off of them and, at least from FT reports, they seem to cause a lot of confusion. I think they cause a lot of confusion precisely because most frequent travelers, who would know what they were getting themselves into, would never buy an E fare in the first place.

Those silly millennials and their Chase Sapphire rewards cards... Serves them right!

I suppose that card gives you extra points when booking travel through Chase? I have a pretty ordinary Chase Mileage Plus Explorer Card. I have never tried booking through them. I often book directly, or through Orbitz.

Edit: I don't mean to make fun of them. It just seems natural to call the airline, if something doesn't look right.

If they are "falling apart" over this on a 4 hour flight, perhaps they ought not to travel alone. What are they going to do if something horrific such as a misconnect or a delayed bag occurs? Seriously, they need to put this in perspective.

DL agents have clear instructions on BE and DL audits changes for this reason. They are free to call, but this isn't one of those things where a kindly agent can do what they want by keying in a couple of sequences.

Their best bet is not to check-in and to handle seats at the gate. While the likelihood is that they both wind up in lousy middle seats, if they don't have seat assignments, the GA must address the issue and to the extent that there are seats close by (bear in mind that across aisles or one behind the other ought to be manageable without "falling apart"), that is where a decent GA can be helpful. Once you've got auto-assigned seat assignments, even GA's have to do extra work to move a BE pax.

I have had 3 recent experiences with BE and they have all been positive for seat assignments. Check in right at 24 hours and there are usually a few seats together. Get an expertflyer trial membership and set a seat alert for 2 seats together at T-24. You can find these with SDCs and upgrades. There are definitely rows for GA to assign that also have opportunities for seats together.

Can anybody with recent experience booking Delta through Chase confirm the plausibility of the scenario outlined by the Op, that the travelers could have missed a warning that they were buying a Basic Economy fare? The warning on Delta.com and Orbitz is abudantly clear. If they're just whiners with post-purchase regrets it's time to suck it up and recognize that choices and actions can have consequences.

I did a test search for a points booking on Chase:



The (E) won't mean anything to infrequent travelers.

If you click to reveal the Rules and Policies, they are very bland and generic, not even airline-specific (e.g. includes mention of risk-free cancellation but says only certain airlines permit it inside 7 days etc.) and do not mention the Basic Economy restrictions.

However when I click Select, you get this pop-up:



So presumably they blew past this without reading it carefully.

OP has already acknowleged this as a learning experience, so I think it's still useful to separate out "it's their own fault so let them burn in hell" from "it's their own fault but here's some things they can try" (which some people have offered suggestions).

The only thing I would say about the pop up, which I think is the same language as dl.com, is that the rule about seat assignments is in the middle, after they advertise several amenities for the flight. If I'm reading a warning about a seat and the first few things on the list are about the free coffee, available wifi and free entertainment, I can sort of understand how some might not read the whole thing.

The seat selection detail should be in bold and should be first on the list.

Anytime I've flown BE with another person in my booking we've been assigned seats together.

Well, am I the only person who thinks that "complimentary premium entertainment" and "available wi-fi" aren't actually restrictions?
This could use some work. But still no real excuse.