Originally Posted by QRC3288

Mate, I can confirm this is not accurate. I specifically remember Xmas time in both 2008 and 2009. I was trying to be a cheapskate and buy economy class tix and use miles to upgrade to J ex-HKG to SFO (back when you could do this...good old days). Both years tried to do it. I had no intention of flying Y. I was confirmed upgraded into J on a flight the day later, but was waitlisted to upgrade into J on two flights in days before. I specifically went to the website and saw I could buy business class tickets for the flights I wanted. Eventually I did end up getting cleared, but that was a week before departure. Perhaps this is a special situation given the holidays, maybe it was an MPC error, but I definitely wasn't cleared immediately. I spent a lot of cash on CX that year (100k USD+) so I don't think I was being treated differently due to a low spend level. As an fyi, I've been DM continuously since 2008.

**added later: I actually had no idea they were supposed to convert a revenue seat into an award seat for me at that time, maybe if I had asked about that and pointed out I was DM they would've done it.