Asking for a friend…….As an AS an elite, they get to pick the preferred (starred) seats for free, so their only option to capture the AMEX AS credit using this particular hack, is to book on AS as a “civilian” (don’t use their AS number at time of booking), right?

However, if that’s true, and they cancel after t+24, what happens to their ~$500 from the original flight credit, since it won’t be saved to their AS account?