Other Middle East and Africa Frequent Flyer Programs - SAA Upgrade policy

I have been travelling extensively on SAA both domestically and regionally for a number of years and I've noticed a change in the way they are applying operational upgrades in the last year or so.

Whereas before I had a good chance of being bumped up to BC about 50% of the time, this has not happened for the last 6 months or so (probably about 40 flights). The voyager manager at JIA told me that there is no chance of being upgraded unless the flight is totally full, but even then I'm sitting in economy.

I don't mind because I'm getting what I paid for, and I'm not going to pay for short haul BC seats, but it does seem that the best way to reward your gold/plat ft's is to upgrade them.

I have spoken to SAA´s office in FRA about this end of last year, and they told me, that since the new CEO is on duty, they are strickly not allowed to make OP Uprades any more, unless the fligth is overbooked.
Before that, they gave me an OP Upgrade every second time (in southbound direction) and somtimes on the way back.
That is just my information, hope it helps.

Christian