Last summer, when most NHL teams were taking full prices for season tickets, the Kings took a $100 deposit per seat and the policy was that you wouldn't have to pay full price for your tickets until a CBA was done. If a CBA had been reached in December and the season was going to start in January, that's when they would have come calling for the money, not over last summer like most NHL teams took money last year. I'm guessing that the $100 per seat deposit policy cost them some money because if a person had 4 seats and their tickets were supposed to cost say $6000 total, LA took $400 to hold the seats. Other teams took the full price for season tickets, invested it somehow to make some money until the season was cancelled and they had to issue refunds. For the average fan that was debating, should I get tickets this year since there's going to be a lockout, it was a great deal. They didn't have to pony up the money up front for something they might not get, and people that buy season tickets aren't going to notice that missing $100 bucks like they would the $1000s that they would have shelled out if the Kings had been like other teams and made fans pay up front for tickets.
As for the suiteholders, sure Staples Center could have offered some sort of credit to be nice, but like others have posted, most companies that buy those suites buy them specifically for the basketball or concert tickets, to go to games and be seen, not to go to hockey games. The premiere seats, where you get access to the suite levels, the in seat waiters, etc are all sold in a package where if you wanted just the Kings tickets for those seats, you had to get the Lakers and Clippers tickets too. So when the arena first opened companies that couldn't afford suites but still wanted good basketball tickets for Laker games, bought those, even though they knew the Kings and Clipper tickets might not be used often, or they'd sell them on e-bay or to ticket brokers. I sincerely doubt anyone bought a suite just for Kings tickets. Sure some of the concerts or other events might not have been great or what people really wanted to see, but by the legal definition of events, they fulfilled their bargain with the suite holders. Should AEG have made nice and offered some sort of credit? Probably. But the arena is a cash cow, they've got waiting lists and Anschutz knows it. They know they can be arrogant and get away with it with the suiteholders because no one wants to give up their box. It's funny to see the contrast in the way they treated the suiteholders and then their normal season ticket base. They don't want to offend their non-suite ticket holders.