This issue has come up a few times here over the last few weeks. What we've been told is that the only way the buy-up option is there are more open F seats that elites that have still not been upgraded.

Looked at pda.continental.com and saw that it's only booked to 13/20 with 11 people already upgraded (between B/Yups and EUA). I'm a little surprised your brother didn't get up'd in the gold EUA runs.

He SHOULD be fine and get the upgrade from his gold status. If he doesn't get it, that's when you need to call CO and see what happened. Either way, let us know what happens so when people have this question again, we'll have actual reports to reference.

edit: I stand corrected. That $260 is the fare difference for an F seat. This is totally separate from the buy-up, but I agree with sbm12 that this is very shady, and a possible end around the "rule" we were told that the day of departure buy ups would only be offered once all elites were accounted for.