I don't remember the point of this discussion from 6 years ago, but I do remember that me and my parents definitely joined away direct that summer (2008) and so we got tickets for every away game with no trouble.
Duffen annonced a few days before the play off final that they would not accept new members after the play off game, which was fair enough as they would have been inundated with applications. We weren't current Away Direct members but having seen City play at virtually every ground in the football league over a period of 30 years I didn't see why we should miss out, so on the Tuesday morning after the play off game I went to the ticket office with our four applications and handed them over to the lady behind the counter (who was actually going through other applications at the time) and told her I was told to bring them in. She just put our applications with all the others and we duly got tickets for every away game in 2008/09.
Similar to what happened to me. All a bit random and messy, but got the rub of the green thanks to the PL madness fever that engulfed the club that Summer.