I just requested a NW upgrade with the Onepass Elite Gold line. The first thing the agent did was put me on hold while he "called northwest for the upgrade." AFter awhile he came back and said I was in 3B. Since my last three NW upgrades with continental had gone like this...

--onepass number, name, date, flight
--bunch of typing, agent confirms upgrade
--agent calls NW for seat assignment

...I was a bit suspicious. The fact that he said 3B was the only seat available even though I had just looked at ITN and found only a few seats booked made me even mores suspicious. I looked up the flight using NW's "view reservation" feature and, sure enough, I'm still in 19D. I call NW just to make sure and they confirm that I'm in 19D. They confirm that 3B is taken but won't say who is in it. They also try to tell me that I can only upgrade on day of departure but I ignore that. I call continental back and the agent goes through the usual routine and the upgrade goes through this time.

Has anyone else experienced these kinds of problems? I'm amazed at the vast range of competencies of the phone agents -- some are terrific and some don't have a clue.