I think you touched on this earlier on in the thread, this auto option seems to be a way of reducing Op-ups. Although different circumstances for you, I would be annoyed getting the upgrade so close to departure, having missed out on the F lounge and if important to the individual the better CD if applicable.

This also seems to be a good ploy at charging Pax the higher amount of miles by auto upgrading the segments as individual. Granted it may be possible to call up and have them combined like others have been able to do so but the average customer will not know this.

Obviously clever from EK but rather annoying.

As your bag would have already gone through will they come out the other end with business tags or do they get changed to First? Again not a major deal but when you've used the miles for the upgrade you should get the full package.