The flight is overbooked, they offered me 900$ to take the next flight

Those who have already read other articles on our site know very well that Flying to the U.S. is not the same as flying to Europe. In America, airplanes are the equivalent of flixbuses, in the sense that there are planes that make stopovers like regular buses, with passengers not getting off and waiting on board for those on the second leg to board, and so on.

Then there is another certainty, U.S. carriers play with overbooking. Algorithms calculate the chances that some passengers will not show up for boarding and thus sell more seats than are available. When, however, as in the case of my flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles., the plane is full as an egg, triggers a search for volunteers who for a fee offer to take a later flight.

Delta paid a passenger $4,500 to NOT let him take a flight

The offer

The first announcement was made about 25 minutes before boarding began. "Dear passengers, we inform you that the flight is overbooked and we are looking for two volunteers who will For 200$ are willing to take the next flight. That will be this evening, which is about 6 hours after the departure of the flight in question.

No one got up. It is good to remember that in the U.S. there is no law protecting consumers as there is in Europe. Therefore, companies try to resolve the issue by offering passengers discounts, vouchers, cash and/or miles to those who are willing to resolve the issue.

The second announcement came 5 minutes later: "We are looking for two passengers who for 500$ each are willing to take the next flight." Still no one has gotten up.

The offer then went up to 900$ per person for a flight where the ticket cost is less than 100$. At that point two passengers sprang to their feet and headed to the desk to accept the offer.

I would have done that too, but I would have missed my next flight from Los Angeles, so it didn't seem appropriate. Of course, I could have also looked for a flight on a different airline, I think the two volunteers did just that calculation. With 900$ you arrive later but you definitely find an alternative flight and at the end of the day you have a nice nest egg in your pocket.

In conclusion

Boarding procedures in the U.S. are also very different from what we are used to in Italy, for example, there are seats assigned to the last and upgrades for passengers who have elite status in the airline's loyalty program. The same goes for boarding priority. They are always invited before all serving military personnel, a sign of respect for those who are "serving the nation."

On American forums I often read about Travelers betting on probability of finding themselves in situations like this and book tickets for flights that often travel overbooked hoping to turn a few dollar ticket into a check for hundreds of dollars.

In Europe this practice is not widely implemented, although I have seen such announcements a couple of times. Of course, in the pre-Covid world, when planes traveled at different fill rates than they do today.

• Curiosities
• overbooking

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