Good to know the direct link re. e-upgrades. I recently had 23 credits taken for GRU-YYZ-YUL.

GAs in YYZ and YUL have no idea how e-upgrades function, and it seems from OP's case that nor do CR. This is a huge let down by AC, staff need to understand the system better than customers, not less.

In YUL, I had FIVE groundstaff swear that my outbound YUL-YYZ-GRU was not upgradeable because it was a TAM ticket despite the fare mapping to W, I had to read the rules out first in English, the in French from the website before they would even accept to call helpdesk and learn how to process the upgrade request.

On the return GRU-YYZ was not confirmed so I did not want to be left using up 6 credits expiring in Feb 2014 for YYZ-YUL unless GRU-YYZ went through. Eventually GRU did go through so on arrival in YYZ I asked at connections and at the lounge to upgrade my YYZ-YUL sector as I had already used the max 17 credits for my itinerary. FOUR agents all said this was impossible as e-upgrades work on a per sector basis. Completely wrong. I eventually asked the ticketing agent to call helpdesk who confirmed that I was right and no additional credits would be deducted, yet apparently the GA decided to to take the six anyway, presumably a fifth agent at the main hub not understanding how it works.

I asked for the credits to be returned 10 days ago, and am awaiting a reply, expected it to be done very rapidly since it seemed a very simply case and the acknowledgement e-mail said normal processing time was 5-7 business days and status members usually are quicker than average.