Originally Posted by
subject2load
Well-made points by both whimike and eternaltransit ^
I actually was once upgraded at check-in to F by Gulf Air only to then be knocked back to J at the gate. It happened many years ago, and I was travelling on a heavily rebated ticket, issued because I had B2B dealings with GF at the time. As per eternal's comments, it was the sort of episode that on the one hand can in no way warrant a complaint, but which nevertheless created a less than favourable impression.
I gave the example of the upgrade-downgrade situation because it just happened recently with a couple ex-BKK who got upgraded at gate (no Skywards membership), then downgraded at the gate because the controller made an error. Could have been an easy customer service win to honor it / future free upgrade to get future loyalty, but instead I suspect that couple will go away with a difficult to remedy negative impression of the airline...