KPhill

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful.

Re the fare difference, have not been offered a refund but also have not asked. I sent a "what is going on?" message to customer service a week ago but have heard nothing. I will ask about the fare difference as well.

Re the upgrades or reward seats, the Club and gate agents were very forthcoming and said that many of the pax in the front were upgrades. They had a pretty long conversation in front of me about whether one of the upgrade pax should be "G.O.'ed" if that means anything to anyone here, although from the context I deduce it means that the upgrade would have been rescinded. They decided not to "G.O." them because they all had checked in and been assigned seats.

The ironic thing is that from my perspective, when I am traveling internationally using an upgrade or miles, it is a personal trip and because I usually have the wife and maybe even the kids with me, a downgrade would be a lot worse than when traveling by myself. So I wouldn't want to inflict that on someone in a similar situation.