My impression is that this program is in a constant phase of evolution so every now and then the protocol keeps on changing. Recently they did a major upgrade to the Thankyou network site and finally were able to consolidate different accounts into one place. My reservation was never on hold with GI. Once they confirmed and approved my itinary, I had to get the certificate numbers as soon as possible. You may go the other way round and get the certificate numbers first and then call GI, provided you have made up your mind to use air tikets even without your preferred route. You may use them for any other date later. Ideally, I wish some day they will consolidate these two departments and get rid of this unnecessary hassle.

Right now one of the challanges is to overcome erratic customer service response time as I figured out from some earlier posts. That I was able to handle by starting your call with PremierPass Elite CSR and let them connect you to the appropriate desk. Regardless of all this, I have never earned air tickets with so little effort (thankyou points seem to trickle in from everywhere, be it CitiGold relationship, buying airline tickets for yourself or someone else or actual purchases on the card) and top of that you also earn miles for your reward tickets. ^