Originally Posted by
MatFlyer
Air France really does exaggerate the amount of seats it reserves for frequent flyers though...
Not really - those numbers are based on the typical proportion of eligible passengers, which includes elite passengers (not only AF but Skyteam ones) as well as full fare paying passengers. As mentioned, on some flights/routes where there is a less than average proportion of elite pax, some of those seats will remain free, while on others where, on the contrary, there are more elite pax booked compared to the norm, what is kept is not nearly enough and some top elite customers may not be able to get a preferred seat at all. If you want to compare, if you were flying BA, SK, etc, as a non-elite passenger on a non-full fare ticket, you would not be able to pre-assign any seat at all unless you paid!
More to the point, is there any particular reason why you would like one of those seats? Are there no regular seats corresponding to what you would like (window, aisle, etc?) or is it just that you would like to sit closer to the front or in a particular row?