It may well also be the fact that the Gold who got the upgrade didn't know what kind of ticket he was on. Last year I got the battlefield upgrade CLE-IAH on a discount ticket (don't remember the fare class) and made a comment to the guy next to me about it and he said he was Gold on a discount ticket and got the upgrade at 3 days. I appropriately whined about it here at FT and Scott looked into it and said that the guy beside me was on a Y fare so he should have gotten the upgrade first (which I agree with).