Judging by the fact that I can't select $E or $C seats in my current reservations that are more than 24 hours out (and the fact that it would make no sense to lock elites out of the $E and $C seats at the 24 hour mark), I'm pretty confident that it's "within 24 hours" and not "until 24 hours."

There's very little need to set your alarm for the 24 hours mark, because

• They've moved most of the $C seats out of the "P" section, restoring the number of "P" seats available to elites in advance to near pre-RoachChoice levels.
• They've moved many of the $E seats from the reclining exit rows to the non-reclining exit rows, so the more-desirable exit row seats are again available to elites in advance.

The net result of all this is that we have almost as many seats available to us for advance assignment as we did before the introduction of RoachChoice, but it will be easier than before for last-minute elites to get aisle seats, and NW gets to milk the non-elites for some extra cash if they want to guarantee a better seat.

I call that a win-win-win. Good job, NW! (finally)