In all honesty couldn't those be Gold/Plat Y-fare purchases, then pulling the FC seat from the A bucket?

Doesn't seem that unreasonable for that route... I'm in the same boat next week with trips to ATL & IAH. F0 all the way, but I'm 100% sure that some Gold/Plats will purchase Y-fare EWR/ATL seats... I think that's why they hold 'em in A.

Personally since I buy the lowest fare possible, I don't like it, but it does make sense for high volume corporate/Y-fare routes.

You know, for every one of "us" that buys the low-fare tix waiting for EUA there's a guy buying Y-fare and *****ing that EUA gave up the seats that he was counting on... I'd be willing to bet that CO's corporate customers harped on them about availability of last minute FC seats from Y-Fare... you can bet your a$$ that if I was paying $1,200+ from IAH/EWR and didn't get a FC seat I'd be going ballistic.