Teacher:Given a travel related situation, and given a specific question about the situation, summarize the question into a title
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: My family and I are flying to New Zealand (AKL) from the USA (LAX) in just over a week. We booked 7 seats (in a single booking), but when I check the American Airlines website it says we don't have seats assigned, and recommends I select seats. The 7 of us are Mum and Dad (my wife and I), 4 kids (16, 14, 13, 5 years old), and our friend.

When I go to select seats there is only two areas that have a block of enough open seats for 7 people to at least sit close together, however more than half of these seats cost (approx $86-$120 USD each).

Now we don't care where on the plane we sit, we just want to sit together as a family, but can't afford to pay another ~$500 USD to select specific seats.

Are we likely to be seated together anyway if we check-in together? Or are we just going to get random open seats?

Our flight back is on United and we were able to select seats together on the United website without incurring any extra charge.

Here is a screenshot of some of the available seats, to show what we've got to work with currently.

Student:
How to seat family of seven together on long-haul flight?