No, its not a rant about the new tier! Just the opposite in fact, a bit of a blessing to those that try to figure out Op-up chances...

A very nice side benefit of the new bronze tier: T-7 they book their seats for free...

Which means that you get a better idea of how many pax are really in a cabin and therefore a little bit more information on the Op-Up chance...Yes, its still a grey area but just a bit more black and white than previously! Helps in any case for trying to guess how many seats are truly left and how many just haven't paid for seat selection.

Case in point: An upcoming flight I have has been zero'd out from the back up to W with W sometimes changing between W0 to W1 and W2 over the last few weeks...Trying to figure out if the cabin is overbooked, fully flex tickets cancelled or just exactly full...

Today, just after T-7 a few more WT+ seats are suddenly not a mystery any longer as they have been taken, so this might be coincidence but I would think it is more the fact that some Bronze members can and have made their free selection which removes some of the uncertainty of how many seats are truly left...

still a ridiculously complex puzzle and impossible to predict accurately BUT at T-7 or closer, the puzzle becomes a bit clearer (when the cabin is already quite full, empty cabins, you'll still be in the dark of course)

Anyone else feel it is helping them figure out the chances of op-ups?