I think the system is pretty silly as to assigning seats. Even as Gold, a lot of time when booking me and HI togehter it puts us in 1DE.

I think this is the computer doing it, and possibly honoring your seating requests rather than a shifty seat shifter.

Then again, you have complained about BA here on this public forum in the past. So maybe the Michael Winner Gold Card stripping is the start of BA montoring public comments and punishing those what dis them.