In the past the tactic was to use the ticket first before attempting to upgrade, then over time it didn’t seem to matter. As of last Fall , people were still reporting they could upgrade and bridge the savings without tapping in.
There were also some reports in my convention tickets thread of people bridging reseller tix (not the convention tix) in the summer.
But, sometimes it comes down to the CM you get to help you - it is always a good idea to know your numbers walking in the door to GS to be sure they come up with the cost you expect.
Years ago I created a tool for people to crunch the numbers and then screenshot for reference.
So, either something change back in the last several months or Ryan just got a CM that didn’t run the numbers as they should have. Sadly that was often the case, which is why I created the estimator.
There just haven’t been as many reports of people upgrading / bridging over the last year or two, so hard to tell exactly which tactic will work best now AFAIK.