I have a return business flight with 1 other pax to China on Qf codes and metal booked in I. The BNE-ADL leg is in Y due to lack of inventory of I.
I was told could not wait list with an I ticket. So applied for upgrade using points.
Had a text message - "Declined due to insufficient points"
Contact QFF who said that one seat was available but because upgrade was for 2 people on the ticket that it rejected it this way. She seamed a bit confused by why it should have happened and replaced the request.
Just got the same message again about 12 hours later.
There is way plenty of points and she checked it was not trying to get the points from the other passengers account.

Any one had any experience with this - having to use points to try an upgrade an already business class ticket is rude (if not strictly wrong) but it seems system a little broken here.

Avail is showing J9 C5 D3 I0 U1

It sounds like a bug that is causing the message "Declined due to insufficient points" although the reason is lack of availability of 2 seats (although there is 1 available). In other words, rejection may be correct, but the message is wrong. That's my guess anyway.

You may be able to ODU, but it sounds a bit galling that you're having to use points to upgrade due to lack of domestic I class availability (unless of course you were given a discount for your through-ticket due to that).

Contact QF (or the authority that issued your tickets) ask them to separate the bookings. They'll create a PNR for the other passenger and you should be able to upgrade whichever separately.

If all else fails, it might be worth playing dumb at the QP and saying you bought a business class ticket but there were no seats in business - if it's still pretty empty they might look after you.

Can't you split bookings now with the new MMB?