I have been reading this thread... and I definitely agree with most of you here...

1. Yes, double upgrades are not permitted but a mistake is committed here and United has to honor the mistake of the agent at SAN. It has nothing as it is too greedy. The OP still has to delay his plan to get into NRT, no matter whether it is only an hour later than original time or whatsoever. Also NRT can be dramatically different between 4 and 5pm, and traffic will only get worst later in the afternoon. Still, I agree that why one agent's mistake has to be "paid" by a passenger... He still changes his travel plan in order to accommodate United. He is "helping" out United... right?

2. I rarely flew out of SFO in UA F (because I know better if I am going to pay F, it is going to be something other than UA)... but I read literally thousands of horror stories about these "Dragons" at SFO UA F lounges. Why is United still keeping them there? I flew much and never found lounge agents to be mean spirited. Even I found the UA F agent at LAX to be very friendly and pleasant and will be out there to help me if I need anything. Why are the SFO lounge attendants so mean-spirited? It is no longer an isolated case, but freqent complaints... no matter how UA is going to bring in a new F suite or whatsoever, if the F lounge agents can't make a good first impression, it will not attract any future F revenue passengers at all. NH needs to bring back F to SFO-NRT route soon... I am glad that SQ is already bring F back on the daytime flight.

3. The most disturbing aspect here is the excuse, "United needs to protect its F cabin." This is almost a joke. If United is out there to protect its F product, employees of all sorts would have banned from F of an international flights years ago. Domestic... okay I can sort of let it go, but allowing all sorts of non-rev passengers into F is not protect the precious environment of United First product. I can tell you that "employee" class is the main reason why I avoid UA F at all costs except at rare incidents. Sorry to get off topic, this is not about employee class, but I can't help to get the feeling that some of these "dragons" are there to catch all these mistakes in order to allow a non-rev/a friend to fly F. Sorry to have such thoughts, but why are these dragons so desperate to catch these mistakes? Other airlines' F lounge agents seem to be more interested in helping out passengers booking future flights, chating them up, keeping them updated on their airlines, and mingling with them, not catching mistakes and creating a "fear" environment for all F passengers... especially those on award or upgrade tickets.

I feel really bad for the OP and hope United will offer you a decent compenstation package. I almost think the moral of the story is to never volunteer for UA. Please keep us posted!

Carfield