Hi,
I am new to FT and have been lurking for a while. I would appreciate your usefull thoughts and suggestions on a complicated upgrade I encountered

I booked a flight YYZ-FRA-CPT for Friday mid April through Expedia and was sent a paper ticket issued by LH shawing all flights as LH flights as codeshared.

I was interested how to upgrade the YYZ-FRA portion of the flight, which is operated by AC, and I have Elite status and both SWU and SSWU. I called AC and was told that as the flight is LH I cannot do any upgrades until at the gate . Is that really so? Waiting at the gate on a Friday YYZ-FRA is not going to do anyhthing, is it?

Also she said that she would not know what the class booked W with LH is equivalent to in AC, so I do not know which upgrade certificate to use - SWU or SSWU. Does anyone know what W class in LH corresponds to in AC?

The portion FRA-CPT is on LH metal, so I believe I have no chance of upgrading it, as I have no status with LH. Is that so?

I would appreciate any thoughts of how to best handle such a situation, and what I should have done to avoid such a complications

Drumbo