For those of you who may use DTS (Defense Travel Service) to purchase government fares for official travel, there is an issue with requesting an upgrade through AA.com too early.

The DTS fare doesn't ticket immediately and if you request an upgrade through AA.com that clears before the fare tickets, then it blocks the ticketing and requires significant human intervention/calls between government travel agent and AA to fix. Among other things, they have to take away your upgrade and put you back in a random coach seat.

I knew this from before but thought seeing the reservation on AA.com as "ticketed" meant it was actually "ticketed." I now know you need to wait until the reservation on AA.com shows as "ticketed- MMM DD, YYYY" before requesting the upgrade through AA.com.