Originally Posted by enpremiere

They actually can put tickets on hold under specific circumstances (i.e. one weekend this year the system to actually issue BX awards was offline for maintenance) but that's not what was being suggested; these are two separate actions:

1). Put on hold yourself via aa.com

2). THEN call in to Meeting Services with the PNR to complete the purchase and apply the upgrade (thereby ensuring that the you can truly confirm the space before purchasing the ticket)