Apparently not. The fine print on your airline ticket says that they only guaranty that they’ll get you to your destination, not that all the amenities you paid for will be in working order.
On this 14-hour, SFO to Beijing United flight, an Economy ticket was $5,000 less at $2,300. Had there been an empty Economy seat, the airline would have moved you and “refunded” the difference. But the airline’s calculation may not match the difference in seat prices you saw at the time of booking.
While it has been close to 20 years since I made that trip, used to do business class for less than $2500. Personal experience, better to fly a “foreign” airline for better customer service. For USA to Asia used to fly EVA Airlines.
Paying a $5,000 premium for a lie-flat seat only to have it broken for a 14-hour overnight flight is genuinely awful value and the airline’s compensation calculation being opaque makes it worse. JLC’s point about Asian carriers offering better service is well established — EVA, Cathay Pacific, and Singapore Airlines consistently outrank US carriers on business class experience. The fine print protecting airlines from amenity failures while charging premium prices deserves more scrutiny. For travel companies tracking which marketing channels drive premium booking inquiries, Phonexa attributes those high-value inbound calls accurately.
…and not just the asians: Emirates is somewhat more cost, but superb on customer care, while everyone from Iberian to Norwegian is better by far than the USAians.