Ok so here's the conclusion w/ a few questions...

I could not change the meeting. It was a meeting with about 35 people coming in from around 20 companies so I knew the meeting couldn't get changed. It also had about half of them flying in from various countries, etc.

My company wanted me there to present my stuff and lead a discussion for about 45 minutes as well as participate and mingle over lunch, etc. My original flight was for 12:15pm and this event was scheduled to go until 4pm.

So I knew that I would not be able make my flight. Since there was no way for me to change my ticket the day before I booked a whole new fully refundable ticket for around 500 euros. I'm in discussion with my company to see if they will cover some or all of it but that's another discussion.

My new flight was at around 6:50pm (iirc). There was a 5:30pm flight and my meetings actually got done at around 3:30pm so I went to the airport with some co-workers and got there at around 4pm.

I tried to explain to the woman at the check in counter what happened but between language issues, etc. she just didn't understand what happened.

My goal was to try to see if she can do anything about my old non refundable ticket for the flight that I missed. If she was kind enough to let me go standby on the later flight, I would do that and cancel my fully refundable ticket.

The conversation went something like:

"I missed my flight at 12:15pm. Is there any way that I can take another flight standby tonight?"

"(looks at me with disgust) you're coming now? (looks at her watch) let me see your passport"

"(hand her my passport)"

"did you book another flight today? why do you have 2 tickets?"

"Well, if you can't do anything with my nonrefundable ticket for the flight that I missed, I have a fully refundable ticket for tonight."

"(confused) you have 2 tickets... (prints out my boarding pass)"

I get my boarding pass and it's for my refundable ticket. Oh well. My nonrefundable is gone.

Interestingly enough the next day, I got alerts on my phone and in the KLM app telling me that check in is available for the 2nd leg on the flight that I missed. I already had another earlier flight on the refundable so I just check in on that flight and took the flight but at least from the app standpoint, it looks like it didn't register that I missed that flight.

For my nonrefundable flight I paid extra funds to book seats (around 20 euros) and paid to check in a bag (25 euros). On my fully refundable fare, it came with seats and a check in bag already. Is there any way that I can get a refund on the seats and bag purchase?

Expensive lesson either way.