Unavailable airline seats?

[katfco]

I'm going to an interview next week, and the flight arrangements were made for me. When I went into my ticket on American, I saw the seats were unassigned. It let me choose seats for two of my flights, but two of them only had the "preferred" seats available. Everything else was marked unavailable. 

Anyone know what this means? Should I call American to try to get a seat assigned or just assume I'll have one assigned to me when I check in? I assume this doesn't mean they'll make me pay for one of the preferred seats just because those are the only ones left. 

[frlcb]

I would assume the flight is full or they have them blocked out for some reason and that you have a seat assigned to you but you probably won't find out until you check in. I would call and see what they say.

[gt7301b]

I'd call, but if they didn't give you a seat I wouldn't worry about it either.

[clseale]

This happened on my last work trip. There were three of us without seats and we got bumped to the preferred seats. This happened at the gate, but it wouldn't hurt to call.

[emilyinchile]

Ditto @sfgal530 on everything.

[GilliC]

I third sfgal. There are actually a lot of "seat advice" columns that suggest not choosing a seat at all when there are only middle seats, because if you don't have a seat reservation and there are empty preferred (or even premium) seats, those will be allocated at check-in. They won't let you reserve one now, because they're still hoping someone will pay for one of them (or pay to upgrade), but then they'll fill in those seats when people start checking in. It varies by airline how/when they start releasing or filling them, but don't worry. They won't force you to pay extra simply because there aren't any more basic economy seats!

[katfco]

Thanks, everyone. Good to know.