The system is screwy, non-transparent, and essentially broken.
ATL-EYW yesterday had only three seats sold in a 12 seat F cabin, so nine people (including me, yay) cleared at the gate. For the life of me, I don't understand why a few didn't clear in advance.
I messaged a rep the night before just to have him check and see if there was inventory that perhaps had not processed automatically. He had no idea what inventory I was talking about. No idea.
There were two of us involved (both DM) on this trip, so I called and spoke to an agent about the same flight. She had a hard time understanding what I was asking, but eventually pecked around and said there was upgrade inventory. I asked if she could push through the upgrade.
She went to work and appeared to have it set to go. The seat went through on my traveling companion's record but when she pushed the final button on mine, the system hiccuped and it didn't work. She came back with, "there is no more upgrade inventory available." It's within 24 hours of the flight, so I look at the upgrade list on the app, and I am #3. Which means, theoretically, that my traveling companion got upgraded ahead of two people already on the list.
I just don't understand how this sort of stuff happens.