Exactly, and this is why I posted. Approvals obviously can and do happen. You don't think anyone here might have benefitted from confirmation of it? If I had only went by everything I read here about it being impossible to unlock under contract, I'd still have a locked phone and still be paying through the nose on my next trip to China or still not be able to use my iPhone there. What's the downside here to ATT getting a flurry of unlock requests? They evaluate each request per their criteria and some get approved and some don't.
Not really no. I think you got lucky. And even then I'm not sure why. I would expect any successful early unlock request to be something granted during a phone call. Not with an actual submission via their site.
I don't think it does any good saying you got lucky. Personally I would have kept this to myself. Now people on here will flood AT&T with requests and I'm quite certain that most if not all will be denied.