Originally Posted by Clipper801

Another more practical way to check may be to try a dummy booking for 9 seats in business to see if it could be done.
If yes, there are at least 9 vacant seats available for sale. If not, try, 8, then 7...... etc.
If the flight is outside of 48~72 hours, there are bid upgrades that AC would want to consider. Once check-in opens, there're also LMU for purchase. AC may have incentives to leave all free eUpgrade for lower tier members until the gate. My sense is that those willing to pay to upgrade would always be preferred over "free" upgrade particularly lower tier members.