Originally Posted by
lucky9876coins
Just a guess, but in this case it sounds to me like you several people were working on the reservations of the cancelled flight. Maybe the computer auto-protected you on a later flight while some human was physically going through the records of passengers trying to apply logic to the new flights (which oftentimes the computer doesn't), and in your case didn't realize you were banking on that later flight.
Sounds feasible, but it'd have to be multiple people and maybe the computer because I definitely spoke to a human to confirm the 1018 flight, seats and all.