Just the other day, I had a similiar experience at EWR. I was booking on a CO flight to Cancun for the millenium. I had just made it to silver, and had not yet received my stuff, but the information was still in the computer. The lady refused to assign elite seats (hey, that rhymes!!) because I didn't have my card, even though I pointed out on the screen that I was silver. I didn't bother asking for a red coat, I figure I'd just call reservations directly and would have better luck.