A relative of mine booked a flight on air canada next month [between Canada/US return] and selected no points no nothing and I think got a discount on the already cheap fare. I think you can book a cheap and nasty ( by this I mean non-changeable,non refundable, don't even think about calling us type) airfare and get it even cheaper if you 'elect' not to get points etc.
Actually AC have developed a revolutionary (for Legacy carriers) pricing concept on their home market (NthAm) fares, where the customer chooses what parts of the journey they want to build for themselves. The fare quote returned on a search is the base airfare only, including some frills. If you don't want to check bags, deduct X$, if you don't want to collect miles, deduct X$, if you agree not to make changes of any kind (all of their fares allow changes, albeit with small change fee plus any difference in fare) then deduct X$.
Conversely, if you want to buy lounge access, add X$, if you want to prepay for buy-on-board food, add X$ etc etc.
For changes, the "re-price" can often add mucho dollaro if the original fare was a 7/14/21 etc advance purchase and the change is within a couple of days of travel. AC offer a "same day airport change" for either $150 or $50 (pending fare type) flat fee which gets you a guaranteed seat on any other flight(s) using same origin and destination points, provided the flight(s) you want has *any* seat available for sale in the Y cabin (cabin - not class).
Their International fares are also undergoing a re-vamp as well, tossing out decades old IATA fare construction rules and allowing mix-'n-match type fares, no min stays, same standard rules across the board etc.
From various trade reports, there are many other Legacies worldwide watching the AC "experiment" very closely.
IMHO, offering an incentive (ie - deduct X$ for no bags) is a far better incentive to reduce baggage carriage, than the U.S. carriers direction where they are charging for bags. The choice is totally up to the customer but to save $ on the fare by not checking bags is a pretty powerful incentive.
To address the OP's question, a SFO-YVR essentially domestic flight isn't worth wasting upgrade points/dollars/certs on, IMHO. Sure, AC is probably the best of the NthAm carriers for internal NthAm carriage these days (with possibly a couple of LCC exceptions) but it's still a domestic flight, with domestic business class cabins.
There are upgrade certificates in booklets of two @ CAD/USD100.00 per booklet that you can purchase, but only via a ticketing desk of AC at one of the NthAm airports. They are also only valid to be upgraded out of the 3 highest fares they offer, so mucho dollaro again.
