Originally Posted by channa

In these situations, best bet is to push real hard with the agent who is downgrading you. I know it's tough, especially with the language barrier, but at the end of the day, KLM will want to put you on KL/AF metal as much as possible, but it's possible that BA or DL or someone had space in business. With a bit of pushing, you may not have had to suffer the downgrade.