Had a friend check in for a WS flight today, traveling with a companion, so 2 pax on the PNR. Econo fare, and I believe both have some WS status (Gold, perhaps), but hadn't selected seats in advance. There were plenty of seats open, but they were both assigned separate middle seats. Then they had to pay if they wanted to change seats to be able sit together. I'd expect that for pax with no status in basic, but kinda crazy that 2 pax on the same PNR with status on an Econo fare would have to pay to sit together. (I'd expect they might have been able to call in to use a voucher to avoid the fee, but that goes back to calling WS and unreachable CS).

It seems like a pretty deliberate cash grab to purposely separate pax with status on an Econo fare and then force them to pay if they want to sit together.