Agreed that it has been about in the last year that they started doing this. Not coincidentally, this is roughly about when they started enforcing the LHR upgrade tax charge on VIPs if my timing is right in my mind.

I have in fact wondered if the whole reason AA is now collecting the LHR tax has something to do with the fact that these tickets are now "reissued" in the higher class of service. Effectively, they are now treated in the same way as mileage upgrades have been done all along (and have always paid the tax). When they were 'upgrades' without ticket reissues, we didn't have to pay this. Perhaps not coincidentally also is the fact that UA's upgrade system doesn't work this way, and the tax is never collected there. Hmmmmmmm.