Some experiences
- BA is often due to the moving of the curtain between J and Y - so very risky to take a seat in the first 2-3 rows of Y. There is a whole thread on the BA forum on that, and has nothing to do with status (This is the same on any euro airline with curtain roulette)
- QF subs (e.g. Qantaslink) often change the type of plane with subtle changes that result in seat changes, even if your seat was not affected. This can happen almost daily. Best to avoid rows near the front that seem to be most common for this.
- QF regional people, seem to be very old school or progressive (whatever word fits?) that if a person has not checked in they will move people around with less "rank" (i.e. status) than you. I have to my surprise (even as a OWE) accidentally benefited from this - i.e. asked at the gate service counter for a seat closer to the front and tap tap a new seat and a comment about that a pax was moved as "we do our best for people who fly a lot". So would imagine same but better for P1 and CL.
- Wife who travels often on Qantas small planes as a WP gets moved around to better seats all the time. Challenge is that what QF thinks is a better seat is not aligned to her preferences! Unless it is the J cabin - which happens with a frequency much higher (i.e. sometimes) than mainline (i.e. never).
- I have been kicked out of 1A as a OWE on the 380 to make room for a CL/P1 (people leave BPs on their tray tables...), so that I just take 2A or 3A. I do not believe that QF can have that many "broken seats" that get magically fixed and reassigned to P1/CLs. I have never experienced this on any other airline.