Here's another data point to support the "PlusPoint upgrades are all messed up" thesis. Note that whatever the heck is going on actually worked in my favor here, but I'm deeply confused anyway.

I recently flew IAD-FRA (772). Applied a GPU when I booked back in early November, which converted to a PlusPoints upgrade request on Dec. 4. I requested both PP and J.

I spent the last 72 hours at #1 on the PP list and #4 or #5 on the J list. At T-24, J was 42/50, but started to fill up. Also, Y got oversold, so it was hard to monitor J because at least 3 seats seemed to be blocked for oversale. At T-3, J was booked 45 + 3 blocked, and then at T-2 the top two passengers on the J list vanished (leaving me at #2 ) and J went to "Full", with no indication of whether some seats were blocked.

Since the oversale blocked my visibility into the number of seats left, I asked the gate agent: "Hi, I'm very near the top of both lists -- are there going to be any more upgrades?" This is when things got weird. A longish conversation between the two GAs ensued, with one of them pointing at something on the screen and saying things like "This one requested both J and O, but this one is J-only, and so it won't let me do blah blah." There was some rolling of eyes, and what seemed to be acknowledgment that "yeah, it's always like that." And then she handed me a J boarding pass. Which I clutched covetously and delightedly... but with a side order of guilt, because the name that was #1 on the J upgrade list was still #1 on the upgrade list, even after I showed as upgraded.

To make things weirder, there was one no-show for J... and I'm pretty sure that seat went to the person who was right behind me on the PP list, not to the person who had been sitting at #1 on the J list.

I can see two possibilities here. The first is that the upgrade list is just wrong -- the two of us who got J upgrades were supposed to be at the top of the list, and the app-visible list was incorrect. The other possibility is that somebody just got screwed out of the upgrade they deserved (twice). If it's the latter, then I'm guessing that in some situations, pax who only request J (not O) can't be upgraded by the system. This is just a wild guess (based on overhearing GA conversation), but it might suggest that requesting all available upgrades is a good idea until this gets fixed.