orbitmic

I didn't mean it as a normative statement, just as an empirical one, as in sometimes they block many more seats that will actually be taken by Gold/Plat/Full fare, and other times, by the time I reserve, there may be no elite seat available at all. Whether it is right or wrong, one is to presume that AF wants to reserve enough premium seats to accommodate the needs of its elite passengers, and in that sense, on average, it does not overshoot.

To be honest, I think that your problem is not related to the seats reserved for elite pax but to two important facts: (1) not all seats are available for pre-assignments on AF. Many are not so all you see as not available for pre-assignment is not necessarily assigned but nearly half the cabin is kept for OLCI choice only to ensure that as few people as possible will be able to be sat together, (2) flights to/from Brazil are obviously extremely busy in that period.

I'm assuming that you are on AF 456. There are only 6 rows left of elite assignments so the odds that you would get, say, two window/middle behind each other by the time check in opens are not huge in my view. At the same time, most likely you will see several other pairs of seats opening at OLCI in the non-elite area too. If I were you, I would either preassign a block of 4 or 2 pairs of 2 seats together for the moment and hope that something better opens up. There is a fairly good chance that it will but you are better safe than sorry.