For priority of upgrades, I vaguely recall that once in a survey or explanation of the future ConnectMiles program, they clearly emphasized that "status upgrades" would always have precedence over bid upgrades.
LAX is reported in other posts here to be one of the more difficult status upgrades to score. It's the only one I have missed in the past 2 years, but that was when it was still under MileagePlus and I was a 1K.