I am scheduled to travel tomorrow from Beirut to Paris and had booked two tickets with Virgin Miles in business class on Air France. It appears that the equipment has been swapped from a 773 with 40J to a 772 with 28J. I checked both of us in at the 24 hour mark and we both received boarding passes but sometime shortly after that the equipment changed occurred and my mom's seat was taken away (even though it still exists on this configuration-5L) but mine remains-of course I assume since I am FB Platinum and my mom is simply explorer and with the combination of being an award ticket that she was selected. My mom is now showing "standby" instead of having a boarding pass with a seat assignment. The Platinum Service Line insists there is nothing they can do and to simply deal with is at the airport or to call Virgin Atlantic since they issued the ticket!

I guess my question is; how will AF deal with downgrade compensation on this ticket as it was issued using Virgin miles? I understand EU261 would offer 50% refund for the downgrade but that is exactly what it would have cost to book the one way flight in economy class-leaving it as effectively no compensation whatsoever!

Also, how would Air France have any idea how many Virgin miles I paid for the booking?

Am I correct that it is Air France who will have to deal with this and it would be inappropriate for them to fob me off to Virgin Atlantic for a miles refund (even though I am sure they will try)?

Is the compensation ever handled at the airport or only after the fact?

I would even consider taking FB miles to an FB account to not have to spend any time dealing with this if they provided decent amount of miles as compensation.

This whole thing seems like it will be an endless hassle and I am absolutely dreading dealing with it especially at an airport like Beirut. Any insights on how to deal with this would be appreciated