Here's the update on how this worked out.

Our YQR-YYC-LHR outbound was interesting. It looked like the 19:20 from YYC-LHR was going to be tricky for an upgrade. As it turned out, the inbound aircraft for our YQR-YYC flight got hit by a bird and they canceled the flight. They rebooked us on the later YYC flight and then on the late LHR flight, but we only had 15 minutes to make the connection, which seemed like it was definitely not going to happen. So, we hopped on Westjet instead (at our expense, of course) and then had lots of time to make the LHR flight rather than risk either a 20 hour delay or having to do the red-eye to YYZ and then the morning flight to LHR. We had concert tickets for the day of arrival so didn't want to miss our show. We were then upgraded at the gate and enjoyed the lie-flats (my wife had never been on them before and is now totally in love with 'em!). That worked out well. For the $99 bucks we paid (not including the WJ leg) on the Bonus Pass I think we did alright

One interesting note, a disabled guy and his caregiver were given an op-up at the gate (they sat behind me so I heard much of their delighted conversation), which I thought was very nice. A colleague of mine whose wife has MS and has lots of trouble getting around has had this happen to them out of YYC before as well on an LHR flight, which is interesting.

On the return leg, out of CDG, we were able to use our remaining SSWU's at the 4-day window to upgrade CDG-YUL-YYZ. The YYZ-YQR leg was unavailable, and in fact the front cabin was completely full, which is really surprising as the last few times I have been on that flight there have been three of us up front (once me plus a retired AC pilot and his wife).

I figure we got good use out of our SSWU's, and though the Escape Pass was not as good as in years' past, I think we did alright by it: two YQR-YVR returns and a Europe trip in Executive for just under $800 each.