I booked an AA ticketed itinerary including AA marketed, QF operated flights with a TA. It's not possible to reserve seats due to some weird system issues between the two.

I called AA to arrange seat reservations and was told I'd have to pay $50 per person for any servicing of the booking... Including seat reservations, which can't be done online. Surely this can't be right?

It's a flex business ticket, and I'm OWE. The seats should be free to select. But I got bumped to the regular reservations team in this case (along with a 90 minute wait time for a callback). I've done this same route before and never had this issue.

Is this really the new way of doing business at AA? Or should I hang-up-call-again?