If your trip were to involve both domestic and international segments the domestic portions would be in first class, but the international portions will be in business class because neither Continental nor Delta offers international first class service. When they discontinued international first class in early 1990s they gave their newly redesigned business class cabins fanciful names. Continental calls their service "BusinessFirst", Delta calls theirs "BusinessElite". The implication was that they were superior to other airlines' business class. This was arguably true then, but now irrelevant.

Both CO and DL offer complimentary elite upgrades to Gold elite members, but these do not apply on transatlantic flights.