Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan - Hurricane Emily flight change - reasonable request?

My family and I flew LAX-CUN (Cancun) RT, with outbound on Thursday and planned return on Monday. When we saw the hurricane coming, I called the AS 800 number (from Mexico) to rebook the return for Saturday.

We needed three seats for CUN-LAX. When I called to rebook, they said they only had two coach seats available, and I would need to buy (i.e., upgrade) the third seat in 1st class. Since the hurricane was coming fast, I was agreeable, but figured I would be able to adjust when we got the airport. No such luck...the TAs told me the same story - we can't upgrade you if there are no coach seats to upgrade. I was hoping to work a deal at the gate, but the GAs were the same as the TAs. Also, somewhat amazingly, 1st did not go out full (coach was full) - I'm guessing some of the tourists now stranded in CUN would be happy to have been on one of the empty seats in 1st to LAX.

My question - we paid $450 to upgrade the one seat to first, but I would have much preferred to use 10K miles for the upgrade. Am I being unreasonable to ask AS to refund the $450 and use the 10K miles instead? I really don't understand why they could not have purchased the two coach seats, upgraded one to 1st (with 10K miles), and then purchased the third seat in coach.

I'm certainly appreciative of getting out, and there were no change fees on the two other (coach) seats. Still, $450 is a lot to pay for a single upgrade, especially since it split up my family on the flight. However, if there's no chance in getting them to switch (either because I'm being unreasonable or they just don't care), please offer up your opinions!

I called AS reservations today, and they gave me Consumer Affairs at 206-870-6062. Is this my best bet?

since you've already travelled consumer affairs is your only bet.

But just so you know... due to overbooking limitations, its very possible that if the agent had sold you the last two Y seats, then upgraded one of them, that the Y seat you gave up would not have opened back up into the inventory. This would have ended up with you having one seat in Y, and then in addition to the miles you spent, the 3rd passenger would have no place to go but F, requiring that you spend the $$ anyway. This is a pretty common occurrence with the Award seats, not AS much with Y inventory, but allocations can change without us knowing about it, especially in a situation like a hurricane where were pretty darn sure everyone booked on that plane is going to want to get out of dodge.