First, a small linguistic point - at least in British English, "bumped off" as a stand-alone phrase means murdered, whilst "bumped" means bumped off a flight. Just FYI... El Al check-in security can certainly help with the former, if not the latter

I've only flown El Al a couple of times recently and had Platinum status, was upgraded on both without doing any more than asking if the flight was full.

Maybe I am cynical but from experience, if you have no status, it comes down to good old-fashioned "protectsia".