On Tue, 2 Dec 2008 03:11:38 +0000, chithanh119
wrote:


You are standing in the checking in queue and someone from the airline
calls out that they need 2/3/4 or whatever number of people to give up
their seats. They offer those people a hotel for the night and X amount
of money.

I was wondering if anyone has ever accepted this and what did they
received for the inconvenience? I've never had the opportunity to
accept such an offer, mainly due to time restrictions, but I'm well up
for a deal like that on my forthcoming trip

I've done this twice:

1) On Northwest, mid 90s, while travelling on a frequent flyer award
ticket (so free to begin with), I volunteered, got a $400 voucher I
used for the next trip, and was visiting my family so got to spend
another day with them, and fly home the next day...which was when I'd
wanted to fly back originally, but didn't have award availability :-)

2) On United, late 2000, travelling to my soon-to-be in-laws (my
soon-to-be wife was already there), my evening flight from Chicago to
Pittsburgh got replaced by a smaller plane. Volunteered, and in
exchange for $600 (!) in vouchers, airline-provided hotel, arrived
early the next morning (Christmas eve day, which was why everyone was
anxious to get there, but that was fine with me), and they even gave
me a cab fare voucher. My procrastination paid off, as I was able to
use the vouchers for our tickets to honeymoon in Europe, using them to
pay the difference to a fare eligible to use miles to upgrade to
business class (only time, and best flights ever)

Be aware of what exactly they're offering:

1) Cash -- best, but not likely to be offered (although I understand
they have to pay cash to involuntary bumpees)

2) Dollar-amount vouchers (as I had), usable toward any ticket on
that airline. Check the expiration date, as well as any rules on
combining/splitting (the $600 I got was printed as 6 $100 stubs, but I
verified I could use them together, as opposed to some other $25
coupons I'd gotten for something else that only allowed one to be used
at a time)

3) Voucher for a "free roundtrip within the US" or some such. I
personally wouldn't accept this -- they're generally capacity limited
like low level frequenty flyer awards, which are notoriously hard to
use and most likely to expire worthless. I'd rather have a known
$200-$300 toward any good fare I can find than one of these, even if I
end up buying a higher priced ticket.

Having said that, it seems to be rarer these days that they actually
need volunteers (sometimes they'll get names in case), despite the
full flights; better yield predictions, I assume. Or I may be
blanking things out; travelling with kids means we're much less
flexible :-) Still worth a try, of course.

Josh