So this guy I know flew to Chicago from LA the other day on UAL, which was a 752 when he booked it, when his upgrade (e500) cleared 72 hours out, and when he used Flightcaster to see how it was looking day-of.

When he finally got around to checking in online, he got the "there is a problem with your upgrade, please see a representative at the airport to check in" message. He showed up at another airport for his connecting flight and got handed a BP for the LAX-ORD leg that indicated that he was in seat 6K in the C-cabin. Apparently, the Skywest woman was confused too.

So, he makes it to LAX and predictably finds that while he was strictly speaking downgraded, it wasn't that big a deal. The 752 was replaced with a new-config int'l 763. Score.

OK, so none of this is particularly surprising/interesting. What is surprising/interesting is that he got an email todayfrom Customer Relations apologizing for the downgrade from First Class and offering 1 e500 for his trouble. So far, they haven't deducted the 4 e500's for the upgrade in the first place.