Air New Zealand Air Points - Seating request for "premium" seats

Talking here about the forward seats in normal Y - trying to book 4 pax on a multistop itinerary through the Air NZ website. Seat map shows the forward six or so rows in green on the A320 (designated as premium seating only available for status holders).

Question - we have one pax who is a NZ Gold Elite; everyone else is no status (well, I'm a LH*S) - can we put all four of us in the same 'green zone' on the basis of the NZ*E travelling with us? The website lets me choose these seats without having to 'confirm' status, but there is a popup box which warns me to ensure that I enter said status FF number into the booking field.

i.e. if I choose 4 seats in the green zone, all on one booking reference, and only one of the pax is essentially eligible to sit there, are NZ going to bump our whole party out of those assigned seats?

Incidentally - the multistop itinerary booking function and ability to choose your seats via interactive seat map - brilliant. Two thumbs up. ^ ^

Yes multi-stop function is pretty good - although does have some annoying restrictions still.

Anyway, I know you can have elite + 1 other seated together (as long as booked on one PNR) in the premium seating zone. I'm not sure if that extends to 3 others though. However, AFAIK the premium seating is for *G and *S (and koru club) - so 2 elites+2 others might be okay.

In terms of 'eligiblity' only one elite is required. If you have more people than fit in one PNR, have another one and link them.

However the NZ 'seat shifters' might get a bit shifty with you and change them...