Last week three of us were travelling from BRS to LAX via EWR and CLT on BF Saver Award tickets. All three legs (CO/CO/US) were confirmed in F for a couple of months and we were able to check in that way at the 24 hour mark ahead of the BRS departure. The orignal 738 scheduled for EWR-CLT was changed out for a 735 and the number of F seats dropped to 8. I had reserved and checked into 1A/1E/1F so these seats still existed.

When I got to the gate in EWR after clearing customs etc. the gate agent issued us new tickets (two middles and a window in coach) and said that they were "trying to page us..." I discussed the matter with the agent at the desk and got decent compensation and was told to follow up with the OnePass Service Center which also proved quite ameanable.

As a Plat/Co* (Mrs FATSKI is also a plat due to MM and was travelling with me) I expect that I got better treatment than I'd otherwise have received, but I'm wondering about a few things on this and what, exactly, CO's policy on this type of thing is. I'm not upset and CO compensated so this is really just to understand what happened (and if there is anything I can do to prevent it happening again). By the way, we were on three separate PNR's.

1. The agent seemed to think that I'd paid "only" $119 per ticket but actually that was the tax since I'd done a BF award... He claimed that this was why we got bumped back.
2. After the flight I looked on the Flight Status and saw that 1A and 1E were now show as "Customers upgraded to First Class!" We did have boarding passes for those seats...

I get upgraded far more often than not and certainly can't complain on that basis, but I'd rather fly a few legs in Y myself than have my wife and daughter downgraded when I'm flying on my own time on an F ticket. Somehow it seems that reward tickets are seen as a "free" ticket rather than a "paid" ticket.