EL AL Matmid - Seat selection within 72 hours of flight

What is the story with seat selection within 72 hours of a flight? My wife is travelling on Tuesday on LY7 from TLV to JFK, and right now it is Saturday night in Israel. The Manage my booking link for that flight shows all the seats occupied. KVS shows plenty of availability on the flight. Is there some sort of blackout now for seat selection until we get to the online check in window of 27 hours before the flight? KVS Sabre enhanced seat map shows some good seats available up front - but the regular seat maps show every single seat unavailable, but there are plenty of available seats for purchase. So why is there this seat selection blackout until the online checkin window opens up 27 hours before takeoff?
Is it worth calling El Al now to try and select some of those seats?

What is the story with seat selection within 72 hours of a flight? My wife is travelling on Tuesday on LY7 from TLV to JFK, and right now it is Saturday night in Israel. The Manage my booking link for that flight shows all the seats occupied. KVS shows plenty of availability on the flight. Is there some sort of blackout now for seat selection until we get to the online check in window of 27 hours before the flight? KVS Sabre enhanced seat map shows some good seats available up front - but the regular seat maps show every single seat unavailable, but there are plenty of available seats for purchase. So why is there this seat selection blackout until the online checkin window opens up 27 hours before takeoff?
Is it worth calling El Al now to try and select some of those seats?

the seats that you see as unavailable on elal's website are those saved for matmid members with status. some of them open up during OLCI .
you can try to call, and get a better seat.. maybe you'll get lucky

What is the story with seat selection within 72 hours of a flight? My wife is travelling on Tuesday on LY7 from TLV to JFK, and right now it is Saturday night in Israel. The Manage my booking link for that flight shows all the seats occupied. KVS shows plenty of availability on the flight. Is there some sort of blackout now for seat selection until we get to the online check in window of 27 hours before the flight? KVS Sabre enhanced seat map shows some good seats available up front - but the regular seat maps show every single seat unavailable, but there are plenty of available seats for purchase. So why is there this seat selection blackout until the online checkin window opens up 27 hours before takeoff?
Is it worth calling El Al now to try and select some of those seats?

the seats that you see as unavailable on elal's website are those saved for matmid members with status. some of them open up during OLCI .
you can try to call, and get a better seat.. maybe you'll get lucky

Indeed:

[KVS Availability Tool 6.8.0/Diamond - Amadeus Enhanced Seat Map: 22 Nov 2011/LY 7/TLV-JFK/772/Economy] (http://www.KVSTool.com/?R)
A B C | D F G | H J K
21 + P P -
22 - - P - P P + + +
23 - - - - - - - - -
24 - - - - X - - X -
25 - - - - X - - - -
26 - - - - X - - - -
27 - X - - - - - - -
28 - - - - - X - - -
29 - - - - - - - X -
30 - - - - - - - X -
31 - - - - - - - - -
32 - - X - - - - - -
33 - - - - - - - - -
34 - - - - -

[+] Available [P] Preferred [G] Galley
[-] Unavailable [X] Blocked