Well, much as expected. Checkin at the SA Gold desk, attempted to request an emergency exit seat "there are only lonely seats available" suggesting that my partner (LH Gold) would be separated. Offered an upgrade at EUR 640/pp to business! Onto the flight with a really full seatmap, but the flight was empty. Ended up with two 3 seat rows to ourselves! Although other parts of Econ were really full. My LH Gold partner was greeted as SA Gold but as a LH Hon I was ignored :-) Lets see how the return is!