That happened to my wife and myself a few years ago heading to Cancun. The flight was looking for two seats trying to keep a family of four together. We gave up our seats for a flight that left 1 hour later (yes one hour) and they put us in first class cause that's all the seats that were open. All in all a good start to our vacation week. Oh, did I mention the 400.00 credit for each of us which we used the following year?
The dollar amount always starts out low for a credit and as they get more and more desperate they increase it. I jumped on it at 400.00 but they started at 250.00.