Originally Posted by
Stripe
No reason not to request the upgrade at the time you make the reservation or any other time before ticketing. The upgrade process works off the PNR which is created immediately.
However, the days of being upgraded while a reservation is on hold are gone, now that the hold option is no longer available within 7 days of departure.
Our corporate travel agency always puts reservations on hold for 24 hours (to allow for various approvals before ticketing). However, I have learned the hard way
not to request an upgrade before the ticket is issued. If my upgrade clears while the itinerary is still pending, the travel agency is unable to ticket me because I am suddenly booked in
x rather than
s or
q or whatever. The agency has no way to issue a ticket booked in
x. They had to cancel and rebook me, and the flight I had been booked on no longer had the cheap seats, so I had to take a less convenient flight.