Originally Posted by intuition

I always thought gate agents chose op-ups - based on how strange they chose who to upgrade. But on one onversold CKG flight, I overheard conversion between a couple and gate agent. AY had split the couple by op-up-ing only one of them and the couple didn't want to accept the upgrade. In despair agent kept repeating "the computer chooses, we can't do anything about it" and "it is a better seat".
(Actually, they split 2 couples on that flight, that's how bizarre it gets.)