So a couple weeks ago I saw a good deal to pay $625 to upgrade a family member from E+ to Polaris business on a leg of an itinerary (EWR-LHR), and it went through and everything.

But then a few days ago the family member had to make an itinerary change now to fly LAX-LHR, and I see the ticket is no longer in business (it's in PP, R class).

My question is what happened to my $625 paid? I know that it probably won't get refunded, but did it become part of the new ticket value / was it used to fund the ticket reissue? Or would a future flight credit be issued for it if the new ticket were lower value?

It would be frustrating if this were just evaporated as money wasted (both in terms of no benefit gotten for it, and also that the family member didn't check with me before making the change, etc.).

Edit: in talking to reservations, there was a long convoluted investigating the record to understand that the passenger paid A/C $ when reissuing, so the upgrade value of $625 did not become part of the ticket at all. So it essentially evaporated $625 in money I paid.

Has anyone had success in requesting a refund in cases like this? This will be super frustrating to see that amount of $ go down the drain.