Since I am a very active Gold member, I have found no problem in redeeming miles,
both for tickets and for confirmed upgrades
for my wife. Continental marketing has told me that they want Gold members to redeem
miles and they try to do anything possible for this to happen. However, if one is not
currently an active flyer with Continental, I
suspect that redemption gets more difficult.
After all, when Continental allows pre-boarding for Gold, Silver, & Bronze, half
the airplane boards. If half the plane is Elite, then there are a great deal of active
FF's in OnePass.