At the time of purchase it was $1600.00 per ticket plus 30,000 miles for biz class, booked on nwa.com. I did not buy a B fare and then cross fingers for the seat to become available. I don't play (and would not have played) that game.. I would have just bought discount economy if that is all that was available.
I was thinking of the small claims thing or an ombudsman thing if I don't get a response i'm comfortable with. Or perhaps amex dispute.
If it was me it would be one thing but to have the folks jerked around because they don't know the intracacies of airline ticketing/codeshares/etc etc just seems opportunistic and shameful.