Chickenmittens, I'm not sure about any of it as auto upgrade has never worked for me yet! What I do know is that if you set it then you need the miles there, obvi, and I suspect that they get auto upgraded at the same time as alerts are sent out. Who gets priority? Again don't know, I had to use pull to get my upgrade in the end, so I know that everything can be by passed. Sorry for my useless effort. My husband is now waiting for an upgrade for a flight this Thursday and it says auto upgrades stop 72 hours before departure.