MSPeconomist

As others have suggested here, the problem with giving up the seat in this story is that it rewards the poacher for bad behavior and gives her an incentive to continue trying this stunt to get a FC seat for free. Offering to change seats with someone who has special needs is different, as is having the GA switch you to a different seat in the same cabin or the same type, but that isn't what happened here.

Unfortunately the OP capitulated and didn't even insist that the incident be documented. I predict that it will be hard to get any ex post compensation as the OP appears to have volunteered to give up the FC seat.

What if after agreeing to the swap to avoid a delay, the flight was delayed anyway so that OP lost the seat and still missed the connection? What if the fact of having a seat in the rear of the aircraft caused the OP to miss the connection? IMO the idea that being agreeable would enable OP to catch his/her flight was just speculation. I'm glad that part worked for the OP, but the result could have been otherwise, with a poached seat and a missed connection. The seat swap could even have caused a missed connection due to the additional time to deplane from the back versus FC.