Originally Posted by cos999

I have a flight in early March MUC-ORD that is a 777-200 and is showing the seatmap as shown in this thread: the old business class (48 total seats) and the new PE economy.
Last October, i had an upgrade for PVG-ORD clear and was able to select 2C as that was when they got rid of the F cabin, and let anyone in J select those very private seats IMHO.
My upgrade for my March MUC-ORD cleared today and I went into the mobile seatmap and saw Rows 1-2 "full" so picked another seat.
I saw the same on the seatmap on the website.
On a whim, I went to book the same flight and 2 seats in Row 2 on the seatmap were listed as empty.
I called 1k line to ask them to put me in the empty 2C and the agent said due to equipment swaps, the system is not letting Rows 1-2 seats be chosen. She would only say they
want to make sure someone that bought a first class ticket, would get one of the seats in Rows 1/2, the old F, if the equipment did not swap to the new Polaris with 50 seats.
So I assume the old metal with 8 F seats, -1 blocked for pilot (and missing on mobile app seat map), and 2 shown as FREE on that booking page, means more than 5 people bought F tickets but
don't have seat assignments(?).
What am I missing?