I was very wary about reposting OD articles here given the vendetta OD seems to be running against CX. But OD did have the letter and Mrs. Chung's back-of-envelope "file note" (if we can call it that) - in discussion boards like this we take statements on face value don't we? Or else there's no point discussing anything cos we'll all doubt each other.
Obviously CX cannot run "I never made any promises". I think on the balance of probabilities "mgr Paulo" probably did make the promises Mrs. Chung claimed he did - otherwise why did she not find the promise meaningless like kaka did or kept the documentation for such a long time. Of course CX can run the argument "a gratuity promise is non-binding", which is what we have to evaluate CX's morals on.
I don't think the time Mrs. Chung kept the offer has anything to do with it. In fact it is to Mrs. Chung's disadvantage to keep the offer for so long in case CX folded or got taken over.
Whether you find Mrs. Chung greedy is YMMV. Kaka found upgrade for two not excessive. Leungy18 did. maortega15 asserted the Chungs should not have insisted on their promised reward when refused. I don't really want this discussion to be a valuation exercise on Mr. Chung's actions so I want to note there is a variety of opinions in this regard and move on.
I'm more concerned over the implications on assuming CX will lie and renege when it can get away with it. Everyone becomes more transactional - staff and suppliers will not take a CX IOU and will relegate any CX requests to "share the pain" up a 777 tailpipe. IRROPed passengers will get more confronational.
As passengers (which not all of us here seem to be) I think the main implication is in customer service. One of the things I assume CX will do and not necessarily a PRC major or LCC to do is to generically "put things right". If we can't trust CX to do that, why are we not taking PRC majors (well, if we can cope with it!) or LCCs?