FlyerTalk Forums - HA upgrade strategy?

Hi,

My wife and I are flying SEA-OGG-KOA next Friday and returning the following Friday. We're currently booked in Extra Comfort seats on all legs there and back. We booked with miles and used cash to upgrade to EC.

Unfortunately, my wife broke her ankle about 4 weeks ago and is currently in a hard cast and probably won't be getting out of that until after we return.

Those lie-flat F seats are looking pretty attractive now on the A330's...anyone have any advice on the best way to get upgraded to F without breaking the bank? I learned about the Bid Up thing when I got an email about it today, so I'm thinking about that option now.

We also have a ton of miles still (like 60K) so I was thinking about trying to use those at least for my wife's seats, but when I called the reservation line today I was told that since we booked with miles that we would have to use cash to upgrade. (Is that actually true? I couldn't find anything online one way or the other...)

I see a few options:

Use Bid Up and take a chance with an offer ($425pp was the minimum, so I was thinking a bit more than that)
Bid Up showed I could just upgrade outright for $900/pp, but that's too rich for both of of us, I think
Upgrade at OLCI for whatever it costs then
Cancel (we have trip insurance) and rebook and use miles for her flights and cash for mine, or pay cash and then use miles for upgrades or whatever (but if we cancel I think it'd be a couple weeks before we got our miles back, so not sure we'd have enough miles to make that work)
Ask really really nicely at the gate to let my wife sit in an otherwise empty F seat (if there are any)

We're not seasoned travelers by any sense of the imagination, so if anyone has any advice or guidance on how best to proceed, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!