Interesting thing I noticed on AA.com recently...

I'm flying this weekend with my wife, and we changed our seats to 17C and D (exit row on a 757) with no one else in the row. I'm AAdvantage Gold, and my wife is general population. I came back to the reservation a few minutes later and saw that next to me, in 17B, was a filled seat where it had not been fileld before. So I changed our seats to 16C and D. When I come back the next day, 16B is now filled, and 17B is unoccupied. So I change back to 17C and D, and 16B changes back to 17B.

Now I don't dislike sitting near strangers THAT much, but I'm really intrigued to see this happen.

The only possible explanation I have, other than AA.com being screwed up (which is entirely possible), is that the seat next to me is being blocked as I am a gold member. This is substantiated by the fact that the middle next to my wife is NOT blocked.

This is a nice touch, but I frankly would never have expected it if I am correct. Anyone have any insight into this?