You will most likely get the upgrade. Are you going down for the Thanksgiving week? We're going down on 11-21 but using miles for coach so we can't upgrade. There are always seats that go empty up front in my experience.

Don't know if you've been there before but it is a GREAT place. Great restaurants, shopping and people and in an hour you can be on the Caribbean side, 1.5 hours you can be in El Valle (canopy zip lines) and in 30 minutes you can be at the Gamboa Resort, all of which I recommend.

Cheers