Well...called Continental to sort out the upgrade dilemma. Would have come down to day of departure, based on someone giving up F seat or racing to the airport. Still not entirely clear whether the A seats would have been an option even if we had arrived early. Nothing definite on the upgrade given the situation, and wouldn't have been telephoned or upgraded prior to airport. Anyway, went with certainty and upgraded the return instead of outbound (a bit disappointed though).

Called One Pass, great agent took care of the mess and apologized (Deke in Denver). Said that I was misled to think be optimistic on the upgrade, and advised the return upgrade.

Also called "We Care" number to customer service and voiced my displeasure and entailed hassles due to original agent's conveyance of optimism. Would have loathed arriving at the airport to find ourselves in an unexpected mess at the inception or our vacation. Anyhow...

I appreciate that Cont. at least listens and apologizes. The customer service rep. took the initiative to follow up with the agent to correct any future misinfo. Cont. is "rising" in this regard. There's nothing more irksome than an airline that says we screwed up and doesn't care about correcting the error or future errors.

Jeff L. (sigh)