Just wanted to share this ARN story for you guys.
One of my friends travelled with his family (him, wife, 10 year old and infant), none has any status what so ever. They were scheduled for the early 0635 ARN-FRA connecting at 1330 for EWR on LH. Pretty f****d up lay over if you ask me.

The morning flight out of ARN was over booked and they asked for volunteers. So the GA picks my friend and his family (among others) to go on the next FRA flight (strange choice as they had a long haul connection...). They got VDB vouchers 3x300 euro.
So, the next flight is overbooked too (the SK at 0905). The GA calls them up and asks if they could possibly accept to go on the SK direct flight to EWR instead of transferring with the kids at FRA and ride the back of the very nice LH744. Happily they said YES! and got another bunch of VDB vouchers (3x175 euros). And they upgraded them to Y on the SK EWR flight. And I mean upgraded. Because they were ticketed in lousy W on LH but ended up with Y (with the 150% miles).
Hopefully they op-uped some status pax from Y to C to accomodate, but still...
I mean they ended up with SK vouchers worth more than they paid for the whole trip and got upgraded and received a lot more miles too.