GTW - I thought you were sensible person who applied common sense aviation. Are you really telling me that you would sit in an unserviceable seat? Seats are not inop’ed for the hell of it. Getting home is important, but let’s do it safely.
Airline on-load/off-load policies are not random. Every passenger has a value generated by profiling systems. The class of seat, ticket price, booking history, frequent flyer programme status, booking method, check-in time, past flight history etc. are all used to generate a value. When an over-booking occurs, the passengers with the least overall value will be generally be denied boarding. The same applies to an upgrade with the exception that upgrades are not generally offered to the same person twice. Otherwise too many Frequent Flyers would book only ever cheap seats in the expectation they will be upgraded on busy flights.
And I agree with the sentiments expressed by kristofera; it’s the small print that matters. Only if you can spend it like cash does it have a value. If not, second prize would be $20,000 dollar voucher.
PM