I think the only logical explanation would be that the flight is already overbooked or they expect the flight to be overbook and they anticipate to have to bump people up.

On CP, if you are an EP, as long as there is at least 1 revenue seat remaining, they will open it up for award for an EP.

Gabriel: Since this is a CP operated flight, the C class rule does not apply in this case. C class will only show up on an AC codeshare flight operated by CP 72 hours ahead "IF" CP releases any seats for upgrade.

My advice to you Shareholder is to keep on trying... I was told by the EP desk that if there are no U class available and an EP is not the one travelling, they will send a request through the system which will usually come back negative. Then they will send it a analyst for that particular route and they will decide whether to release one. However, I was told that the "sending it to analyst" process is not common and the agents were advised not to do this too often.