Appreciate the info everyone; this is most frustrating.

I found the following link that says you can drag and drop billable time or expenses into a bundle *IF* you have QBO Plus or Advanced:  https://www.stacyk.net/add-billable-time-or-billable-expenses/ .  (I was able to do this with non-billable separate items before, and thought it should work the same with billable items; guess not.)

However the information in the above link was posted in NOV 2020.  Can anyone who has these upsold versions conform that this still works?  We have QBO Essentials as we don't need the other features.

If still accurate, this is a pretty basic and important function that I don't think should cost an extra ~$17+/month...  I consider the fact that it does not work in Essentials a bug in QuickBooks Online Essentials.  At minimum there should be a warning that this feature is not available. 

QB moderators:  I'm rather frustrated with QBO; this is not the only functionality problem I've had.  Please just tell me yes or no if paying through the nose for an upgrade will get me this feature bug-free, or when the bug will be repaired in Essentials.  (And please don't post a canned "Hi we're here to help..." message; I don't get any warm fuzzy feeling out of it and it just takes up space in the thread.)

Meantime I'll see if any of these workarounds for the bug work for me.