I talked to a junior AS agent at the partner desk, about the current phantom seats issues we are experiencing. She went to talk to different depts that returned to tell me she talked to 3 different depts, and the AS partner desk upper echelons are aware of this because more customers have called in to reflect the issues. According to her, the more of us calling in to voice our frustration, the more likely the echelons would press CX to sync up the availability between CX and AS system.
Even we are not likely getting any improved availability, cleaning up the phantom seats is still a good thing because it would also less the burden on the AS partner desk when people decided to call about the Error Message after making payment.
Of course there is no timeline on when and if this would fix. But she did say the more customers calling in to complain the better to push something to happen. fwiw.