I can assure you that if I click "change" it says "this itinerary cannot be changed online" So it is not an absolute.
No it's not an absolute, but the message you received is not because you've applied guest upgrades. I'm not sure why this happens, but it's not infrequent and usually involves serial reissues.
Sometimes when I receive that message, I'll call the web support desk and they can clean it up so that it can be changed online. YMMV.