Telephone Team vs Ticketing Team

We had an interesting experience on Sunday. Had been monitoring the website for upgrades frequently with nothing released as of day of flight. We decided to get to LHR very early to try our luck there. In taxi on way to LHR, suddenly availability shows up online. We were on hold for ages and finally got someone as we pulled up to the terminal. She reserved seats for us in UC - hooray. We got to check in and we were told no. Apparently, it would have oversold the cabin. I'm just not sure how they had seats to assign to us if the cabin was full. Just my luck!

Anyone else had this happen?

Wow, that is a bit odd... Was this a reward upgrade or a cash one?

Miles upgrade

On the day of travel the airport check in desks take control and priority is out of revenue management's hands.... Sounds like a pretty annoying system glitch to me.

Did you pay the diff in taxes/surcharges, any fare diff and have the miles collected from your account over the phone?

Did you get new seat numbers too?

What I am pointing towards is that if you held a confirmed upgrade, due to their inability to count or not, you have technically been downgraded if denied what was confirmed and pushed into a lower cabin... compensation should therefore be offered