So i booked a plan B ewr-tlv, i believe it was setup correctly. Tried to get PR-1 status at the airport, premier checkin counter were nice but a waste of time. At the lounge, also very nice and called the mileage plus center for help. The rep wasn't aware, I quoted the line 81 and she looked at that but wasn't convinced. She looked into it with her supervisor. After a long back and forth, she said they could only put me into pr-2. I went to the other lounge and off the bat the agent said only pr-2.
After all that time, I gave up. It did not clear, I was 4th on the list.
Obviously people get it done, so it must be doable, just posting my experience.