This spring I took three flights on economy class tickets to burn some miles. There was no upgrade availablility on any of these flights beforehand. I was a Gold member then. On all of the flights returning to HKG I could upgrade at check-in. I simply said I'd like to use miles to upgrade. I took 2 minutes to process and they handed me the blue boarding pass. On the outgoing flights I was lucky twice, once they just upgraded me without me saying anything, the other time there was a availability. Out of 6 flights I only suffered on one. This prompted me to worry less about prebooked upgrades in the future. Its a great way to get rid of my growing pile of miles. So in case you are past the deadline, try the walkup.In my experience, waiting lists NEVER clear unless you are Diamond.

Indicentially, the destinations by the way were FRA, SFO and LHR.