A follow up on your points:
1. The "parking pass" person told us that no shows are released back into the system after 48 hours. In fact, she spoke of the "sudden" availability around the 4th of July. She told us by the beginning of the week there would be availability and sure enough, Tuesday morning 8/4 there was availability. She also told us that if we went to the owners update that she wouldn't be surprised if some "magic" happened and we would get an upgrade.
2. The VIP call center is only open until 6pm on Saturday and talking 2 a live person was the only way the front desk at BC would do the VIP upgrade. There was no availability online...only when checking in. Technically there was availability online for 8/1 but not until 8/4..when I did a search on 8/4, past dates, including 8/1 showed up green...how convenient!