Except you don’t get to select which middle for the kids. Do you really want to play the seat swap game?

Yeah if/when the day comes that I am sitting in my C+ aisle seat and a family comes in with only middles and asks me to move so they can sit together, its going to be hard no.

Thats right up there with being asked to change my F aisle seat to row 1 window on a 739 - not going to happen.

Plus you can't mix and match fare types in a single booking so the kids would have to be split off on a separate PNR which creates its own issues (especially for minors).

I book one adult and 1 kid on each PNR. No issues checking in.

Yes, I suppose two bookings - one adult, one child in Comfort+ and one adult, one child in Comfort Basic could work, and then just put the kids in the middle after the (somewhat rude to other passengers) seat swap game. That doesn't avoid the greater risk of split automated rebookings during IRROPS though.

... and fondly remembers the good old days when change fees were higher than the ticket price.
At $400, the change fee for this fare class is higher than the 90th percentile of C+basic tickets sold.

We also have 2 aisle seats so getting someone to swap their aisle seats with ours seems doable. If not then they are old enough to sit by themselves in the same cabin as us.

Exactly. That's what I always do.

And of course the fare defaults to "comfort basic".
Set the trap and catch a few unsuspecting newbies to DL who have no idea what they just booked.
A "premium" likely middle seat with a $400 change fee.

Next DL will call avoiding C+ basic a new perk for PM and DM who never even look at the Comfort Fare let alone click on it.

Wish there was a setting to disable any Basic fare from showing when logged in. I've never bought basic in my life and I stil get tricked and nearly end up buying it regularly.

Obviously that's a "feature" according to Delta and working as intended for search algorithms. I do agree that I wish I could customize my search results to always exclude "Basic" and "Extra" fares, as you said, when logged in. I also have almost purchased Basic fares, but only when using the app.

I'm not sure why Delta would be against allowing us to customize our default search parameters when logged in. It wouldn't affect the broader search algorithms for crawlers, and people that never would book them don't have to deal with ever seeing them. Even if you accidentally purchased one of these fares you can immediately cancel for a full refund. The obvious answer, then, (IMO) is constrained Delta IT resources.

Changes fees are the same as Main Basic ($99 domestic/short-haul international and $199 for longer-haul international). At any rate, they pretty clearly don't want people to book these and upfare instead (hence the checkbox agreeing to terms).

I think the only reason these Comfort Plus "Basic" fares exist is so that Delta can roll out First Class "Basic" fares. There's no other reason, IMO. A company of Delta's size is not moving the needle in any appreciable way with tiny incremental Comfort Plus sales on the margins for middle seats.

This sets the stage for First Class seat selection in First "Classic."

Of course, because that's how all basic has worked (aside from the occasional sale matching Spirit).