Removed from Upgrade List??

Hello,

I had the following situation happen to me on a recent flight and being new to united (and frequent flying) this year, was wondering if anyone has encountered anything similar.

I was flying from IAD to MAN on a coach ticket but had purchased an upgrade to B/F ($300 + 20,000 Miles) about 1 week before the flight. The $300 fee had hit my credit card and I was shown #1 on the upgrade waitlist on my united account. About 10 minutes before boarding the flight, I was still #1 of 2 on the waitlist with 3 B/F seats available.

Then my name disapeared from the list. I went and talked to the gate agent and he said that he could not find anything in the system to support my upgrade. This being 1 week after United had charged me the upgrade fee and had the upgrade listed through my MP account (which has more than enough miles to cover the fee). The gate agent told me there was nothing that he could do as there was "nothing in the system"

Needless to say I was less than happy with the situation and was stuck in a coach seat for the overnight flight to Europe.

Has anyone encountered this situation before and is there any recourse?

Thanks