I hadn't had any problems calling the call centre myself to request an upgrade until about two weeks ago. The agent was very pleasant and had gone through the whole process up to making the seat assignment when she began to aplogize profusely and told me that she couldn't complete the booking and that I would have to do it with my travel agent. I explained that I had never had a problem doing it before and asked her why. She explained that if she processed the upgrade that the travel agent would no longer have control of the file. I said that was fine with me, but she was politely inisistent that she couldn't do it.