First of all, if didn't get your msg wrong you supposed to be on economy with miles being updated to business using miles as well , right ? If that's the case, I suggest you make a phone and talk to one of their reps on the possibility of being updated to biz. Oftentimes, the rep will be able to tell what is the overall situation of the flight- whether it's fully loaded or there's some seats left for revenue/awards or whatever they can fit people in. By the way, you can not ask him/her exactly how many folks in the waitlist , what you should ask the rep is: on the scale of 1 to 10, can you tell me what the changes are ? With this information in your mind, you'd be able to make a quick decision of whether to proceed to get the upgrade for all 6 folks or just stay where you are, the economy. Hope my info helps.