Good to hear that the Tarom 'hack' did the trick! Regarding your status recognition: This is a weird one. Last year I had a trip in SV economy booked with Trip.com as a Flying Blue Gold (ST Elite Plus) and had no problem to select premium seats free of charge. My guess is that SV has no knowledge of SAS Gold being ST Elite Plus yet, due to the fact that SAS became a ST member just about a year ago. These things take time and SV IT doesn't seem to be the best. It looks like you either wait for online check in, or indeed try to solve this with the SV call center. Phone numbers are found here. But they might argue that they can't touch your reservation, because it was made through an OTA. Good luck and keep us posted how it goes!