I guess I could have gotten the waitlist cleared as an AA EXP and BA Gold. Just did not want to draw attention to my itinerary (it was legal but that DXB bit was a pure mileage run). I was just surprised that things changed so fast - F/A inventory was showing 9 in itn and TA was able to get initial confirm from local BA office. It changed when ticketing was attempted in a matter of hours.

I don't try to make too much sense of airline yield mgmt anymore.