At the very least, you should do OLCI 24h ahead of your flight every time. That would leave you a whole day to fix things up if needed. But I agree, one cannot take too many precautions with award flights. I have one coming up in 6 days with my GF and 6-month old daughter. We'll see how AE did with a lap infant. Everything should be ok as she was assigned a ticket number but I am still a little be wary...