Just my observation, but, what are your chances of an upgrade with GPU cert when everyone and their brother is trying to use up their veers in the last two months of the year?
It seems a little like it is in the airlines best intrest to extend them so that flyers will hold them all until the end of the year and not be able to use them as opposed to gifting them away earlier in the year to other flyers who may actually be able to make use of them.