I have a sort-of related question.
Have any of you status Velocity members had your chosen seat be 'out of service' at boarding, and if so, what happened?
It happened to me (SG) last week coast to coast, and my chosen forward window seat boarding pass was replaced at the boarding gate with a forward middle seat. I said, "I don't want a middle seat, thank you." and I ended up with a window seat about half a dozen rows from the back of the a/c, surrounded by unpleasantly loudly crying young children. It wasn't a pleasant flight. I guess I had thought that a status PAX would be preferentially moved to a 'good seat' if his or her chosen seat became unavailable, and a non-status PAX would have to suffer reallocation instead, but that wasn't the case in my situation.
So my related question is: does status mean anything when pre-allocated or seating preference becomes unavailable while boarding?