Now that all is said and done, I won't hesitate to pay the $75 + 13,500 points again(15K - 10% bonus). That I cleared the waitlist hours before flight, when I added my name to the list 15 hours before the flight, is kind of amazing since the seat inventory was J2 at the time, and when I cleared there was just J1 showing. There were 8 people on the upgrade list at the time of the flight.
The Flagship lounge experience on both ends of the trip was icing on the cake. Got to LAX 2 hours pre-flight, loaded up on the food and adult beverages. Got on the plane into my window seat and as soon as the engines spooled up for takeoff on runway 25R I had the seat reclined to the 180 position. My eyes were closed before we got off the ground. Killer tailwinds, so the wheels up to touchdown time was about 4.5 hours. I woke about 10 minutes before touching down at JFK. Went to the Flagship lounge after arrival to use the shower, relaxed a bit in the quiet room where only one other person was snoozing and ate breakfast before heading into the city for a full day of work.
Folks - if you don't have an SWU or BXP1, spend the $75 + 13.5K points. Seems a no brainer.....