I flew a SFO-EWR flight on CO today. Prior to the flight, an announcement was made in the gate area that one of the seats in FC was broken and they were looking for a volunteer to downgrade to coach. I was the only one in the FC cabin who was interested in the offer, which was for a $300 travel certificate and two space positive confirmed upgrades. (For those familiar with CO fare basis codes, they are valid for "F" seats.) They also tossed in 4 "Continental Currency" coupons for drinks and movies.

I thought it was a pretty good offer. I've never heard of compensation being offered for a downgrade before, although I was once called the day before and offered compensation to switch to a later flight (but that didn't involve a downgrade). I have flown on several UA flights (all ORD-SFO) where I was involuntarily downgraded due to an equipment change and given a "downgrade kit," which allowed me to upgrade a later flight. Those experiences always left me with a bad taste.

Does anyone else have experiences with downgrading? I don't think I've read too much about that topic here.

I haven't flown a transcon in coach for a really long time. The service was actually pretty decent. The crew was very friendly. To my surprise, they handed out hot, wet towels before the meal, which was beef lasagna or pork teriyaki, and not terrible. I enjoyed the movie (My Dog Skip - OK, OK, I like hokey dog stories and yes, I cried at the end). I gave the FA one of the COntinental Currency coupons for my headset, and about three hours into the flight, another FA came over and insisted on giving me "my $4 back" even though I told her I hadn't paid for the headset but had used a coupon.

But the highlight of the flight was when I left the plane and saw Catman's smiling face waiting for me at my gate! He came by EWR to hang out with me for my two hour layover. Sweet! We enjoyed a couple of Nathan's hot dogs (one of my favorite places at EWR) and then I took him up to the President's Club (for his Sam Adams). What a nice way to spend a layover.