bit frustrated and having thought about it, it's not the first time I've noticed it (but more bothered (in relative terms (it's not causing sleepness night, lol))) this time.

Have 2 long-ish ET flights booked in June: LHR - ATH and return on separate booking. Both are RSF though presume that shouldn't matter.

Both 767.

Managed to get emergency exit row on outbound but rows 7 to 16 all appear on the seatmatp (i.e. I assume they are ET cabin rather than the curtain being behind row 16) but are all taken which I find odd given only 7 other seats are taken according to the seatmap in the entire rest of the plane. not too unhappy with emergency exit row obviously.

on return flight, rows 12 to 19 are all taken / blocked (I do have 17A though - last week this was the first row that wasn't entirely taken). And so is row 27 (emergency exit) and 36JK, 37JK, 38JK. No other seats on the entire plane taken at all. Again, seems very odd and leads me to believe those seats are blocked rather than pax actually selection them.

To make paranoia even worse, on an upcoming ET flight to FRA, the first few rows of ET appear also taken and have been ever since I booked the flight around Christmas.

So, what's going on? is the system not recognising me as Gold and thus not allowing me to reserve a seat in rows blocked for Gold?