Yup, I accepted that my non-status friend is stuck in the back. Miles and copay was also a no for that. My issue was that on the advice of the EP desk and the website popup, I cancelled a super cheap J seat (62K Bos- LHR) and then hit a wall trying to upgrade myself on a basic fare. Luckily, I was under 24 hours when I tried but that award pricing was long gone so had to repurchase the non-BE fare. Still got a good price, but bad info from both the EP desk and AA.com.