Originally Posted by
downinit
Just make sure the economy tickets you buy are in a fare class that is eligible for an upgrade.
And note that those fares are Y, B and sometimes M all of which are quite a bit more expensive than the equivalent discounted fare. I've done this with an M fare single direction before and it cost me about 300 USD over my usual S fare (this was ICN-FRA). Not cheap, but it was well worth it to me at the time.