On an international flight, everyone paid for business whether in dollars, dollars + miles, miles, or a GPU. In my opinion, there never should be a reason to downgrade anyone, but if someone is downgraded, it should be the last person obtaining a seat in the cabin, however it was obtained. The minute you start saying its ok to downgrade an upgrade, you are opening two pandora boxes. THe first is that the upgraded passing could be a 1K or other important customer of UA, and the person who bought a paid fare is a nobody that has never flow UA before and might never again. So to say that the paid fare customer is intrinsically more important is impossible to say. THe second problem is that this introduces the possibility that UA will not be able to resist the temptation to sell last minute fares to people knowing they can downgrade an upgrade with impunity. Once they upgrade, that passenger should be just as important as any other passenger.

Per the OP's post he is a 1K!

I was on a D biz ticket NCE-FRA-ORD-SEA it was LH metal, UA flight number. When I checked in at NCE (I'm a 1K GS) I was told I couldn't get a boarding pass for the FRA-ORD flight. This immediately had the alarms in my head going off. Something was not right.

I arrived FRA at 8:15 am and my LH flight to ORD was at 10:40 am. I actually went to the LH Gold check-in counters. The LH CS lady briskly says I've been DOWNGRADED, I'd be given 1200 Euro as compensation. I told her I didn't want Euros, then she says, "there are only a FEW CENTER, CENTER seats left in coach." I was surprised because it wasn't lets reroute you, lets upgrade you to first. It left such a bad taste in my mouth. And the way she said it, I thought she was happy about my situation.

I literally took my travel document out of her hands, went to the UA counters where they accommodated me in biz class. I showed up in SEA 5 hours later than I was supposed to. I was surprised LH did that - and what if I was in JNB or PEK where I wouldnt have been able to do anything.

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I was in the lounge at Narita last month, and for an hour straight they kept making announcements that business was oversold and they were looking for a volunteer to downgrade from Biz->Coach on an NRT-SFO flight. I literally laughed out loud when they mentioned the compensation would be a $250 travel certificate... They did not up the ante on the offer before I left the lounge. I can't take them seriously when they think that the difference between the two cabins on that long of a flight is only a $250 travel cert.

Unless it's changed, NRT-SFO should have been $1,500:

The ETC is based on the distance between the origin and destination of the oversold segment:
1-1000 miles $200
1001-2000 $250
2001-3000 $500
3001-4000 $1,000
4001+ $1,500

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/t-932136.html

The above ETC is based on involuntary downgrades, no? They were soliciting for voluntary downgrades. I did not stick around long enough, so I am not sure if they had any takers, increased the offer, or had to wind up involuntary downgrading someone, wherein they may have had to pay the $1500 in that case.

It's for anyone. Preferred is volunteer. ETC + fare diff.

Same here, but April, and I don't recall which US city it was, nor the exact dollar amount, but it was $xxx not $1500 or $1xxx! Given that a Z fare on that leg is ~$3000 on average, I can't imagine they got many takers. Refund my entire Z fare, give me $1500 voucher and *maybe* we'll talk :D

Richard

I submitted the DOT complaint a week ago as suggested earlier in the thread.

Today I heard from UA saying that they would refund the difference in fare between business and coach. Not sure how much $$ that is since they didn't mention in the email but for all I know it will be whatever the least advantageous calculation is to an astronomically high one-way full-fare coach calculation. Will report back as to the amount of the refund.

They noted that the $1200 travel certificate given at the gate on 5/23 will more tangibly express their apologies and said that as a Premier 1K member my business is especially important to them.

Still no response to the initial email to customer service that I wrote three weeks ago.

I'll reserve final judgment until I see how much they refund. I have a feeling if it were a generous or fair calculation the rep would have mentioned it in his email.

Interesting, so EWR-GRU should have been $1500 not $1200.

The good news is that the OP apparently purchased EWR-GRU without any additional flights on the ticket. Where the downgraded passenger tends to really lose is when the recalculation involves breaking the fare, so rather than looking at EWR-GRU biz versus EWR-GRU coach, it becomes XXX-EWR-GRU biz versus XXX-EWR F followed by EWR-GRU coach, which is much more disadvantageous and leads to a lot of approximately zero refunds.

Nope. I booked EWR-GRU-GIG.

Ouch. GRU-GIG was flown in biz? Be prepared to argue that you never would have purchased biz separately for only that short connecting flight.

final resolution
 

Final resolution received today. Got a refund of 1132 on a 3300 fare so ended up paying ~2200 for one-way coach to brazil, and received 1200 in credits.

All in all not a bad deal for UA. Overbook biz for $3300 one-way. Worst case scenario is that you have to force a downgrade and keep ~2200 for a coach one-way and hand out $1200 of funny-money. I hope they keep their quasi-monopoly routes free of competition because they aren't getting my business again when I have an option.

Guessing your hands are tied here - but your outcome would not be resolution in my book. Credit card dispute?

Smart move taking your business to a different carrier that cares.