Greetings all,
I was about to pay 20K miles + $550 to upgrade to United business class on a 2-leg trip from San Francisco to Germany. However, their phone rep told me I'm only paying to get on the upgrade waitlist, and that if I'm upgraded on only one of the two flights (i.e., SFO to Dulles _or_ Dulles to Frankfurt), I would get no refund despite having paid for the entire distance.

This seems incredibly poor customer relations--I'd expect at least a partial refund if I paid to upgrade the whole route, then was bumped back to steerage for the 9-hour redeye across the ocean. But apparently I would get no refund, so long as they'd upgraded me for one of the legs of my itinerary. Is this really how it works? Thanks for any advice anyone might have...