As Borisdog said, sometimes you just need to be there on time.
The better half had that a couple of years ago, I met her at Sydney airport for breakfast with a fresh suitcase, she was coming back from Seoul and had 5hrs in Sydney before heading to Canada for a meeting which was on the day of her arrival. Birdstrike had caused Air Canada to send a smaller ‘plane than the one for which they’d fully booked J, and as a mere Silver on Star Alliance she had no hope of retaining a J seat - but she couldn’t afford to be late, and there weren’t even any alternate-airline flight that would’ve made it on time.
They did block off a row of 4 seats for her, and the flight crew did guard those seats. But as not-the-person-paying, she wasn’t the one who was reimbursed for the difference between Business & Economy ...