For those who have lost progress, here is what I've done to restore it

I've lost all game progress three times now with PVZ updates.  I managed to get the first two times restored and am now working on the third time.

FIRST TIME - progress lost December 8.  I created a case and followed up via email 9 times as my case kept being put on "Waiting for Customer Response" for some reason. I took some poster's advice and started following up via chat after over two weeks of this nonsense produced no results.  I eventually got someone on chat who restored my progress.  I was locked out of the game for just under three weeks, missing out on gems, a new plant, and being demoted from Jade league.  Not a happy camper.

SECOND TIME - progress lost January 25.  This was during the migration of the forums to the new platform and posts were unavailable and help was a little crazypants to find.  Chat options were disabled or hidden.  Lost progress help prompts took you to the same article about linking accounts without giving you an option to submit a case (my account is linked to game center on my IOS devices and following the tips did not fix it).  It took four follow up emails from me (with each response asking me the same questions and asking me to attach a screenshot of my player ID each and every time), but got my progress restored after the fourth email.  The help advisor said he made an adjustment to my account, and there it was.  Didn't miss out on the new plant, but got demoted and missed out on gems and the new plant is at a lower level than I usually manage.

THIRD TIME - progress lost 4/15.  This time, I'm seeing notes on the site that EA can't or won't help restore progress??? (At this point I'm feeling like a class action lawsuit might change some attitudes).  Any attempts to pursue a restore progress in the help tree do not produce options to start a case or chat.  They take you to the article.  I went to log-in help and was able to submit an email to start a case (or so I thought).  I sent off the information with a subject line of restore progress.  I found it curious I didn't get an automated response and when I checked my cases this morning, there was no case syarted in spite of me submitting one.  I once again went to the log-in help page and started a chat this time,  again with a subject line of lost progress.  When I hit submit, it did not start a chat and took me back to the same page.  I tried again with a generic subject line of just needing help for PVZ 2 and got connected via chat.  After explaining the issue, the rep said that they got lots of reports of this and it would be magically fixed at some point (Boy have I heard this one before).  I asked her what status she would put my case on and she said "Waiting for Fix".  This is the status you want your case on as it will prompt advisors to reach out to you if it stays on that status too long.  You'll want to monitor your status constantly as they will put it on "waiting for info" randomly, then close it.  Now starts again the dance of me following up via email and chat every other day.  EDIT - I just looked at my case I started not even 15 minutes ago and it is on WAITING FOR PLAYER, not 'waiting for fix' like the advisor said.  Because of course it is. God, I love PVZ2 - it's my daily game, but I am so over this exhausting BS I'm now having to deal with on almost a monthly basis.