Okay, I'm grasping at straws, and this is purely a speculative and fundamentally useless thread. Now that the forum grumps have been dispelled, let's delve into the topic at hand.

I've been thinking about it over a beer tonight, as I recall my experiences as a non-status passenger in seat 1A or 1D of Club Europe.

On both occasions I have been called by my last name by the flight attendant and seem to have had the extra bit of conversation. Unless that is just something that flight attendants enjoy doing with first row passengers, could it also be because those are seats that are reserved for gold status passengers to book in advance?

It did feel like a bit of a special treatment, and I am starting to enjoy it. I'll be sniping those seats 48 hours before takeoff a few more times if I can... The legroom and the view are both quite nice.