This is a Business Insider story about a Delta flight to Reykjavik that was seriously oversold, partly due to challenging weather that required the flight to carry extra fuel and thus fewer people:
To give away the punchline, several bumpees (apparently voluntary ones) got $4500 for delaying the start of their vacations by one day, and a family of five ended up with over $22,000.
Those figures are well above the required payments for those bumped from oversold flights.
That's crazy but good for Delta! I also hear that they changed the aircraft to Iceland the next day to a bigger jet, which was then able to accommodate all the extra bumped passengers.
We - a group of 6 - were offered $2500 per passenger once in 2019 on a flight to Tokyo. We passed and now I have no idea why we didn't do it. That's a lot of flight credit.
I also passed up on a bump leaving London when I was 24.... felt duty bound to get back on time to a job I quit 6 months later.
Leaving Florida in the 90s I was already in my seat when they were seeking a volunteer... the majority of that plane load was two high school groups who had been at Disney, they checked my ID to make sure I really was an adult before they let me deplane
In 2018 I managed to snag a $700 credit whichIused for Hawaii.
In 2000 coming back from Germany with a group we were to change planes in Iceland. At that point they were over booked. One of the couples in our group got off... he was starting to show signs of food poisoning and it was a blessing for them to get a hotel room
We were supposed to fly from Rome back to Seattle through Amsterdam one year. When we arrived at the Rome airport, one of our flights had been cancelled. They put us on an Alitalia flight to JFK. Then, instead of having our Delta Comfort seats, we were assigned the last row of the plane for Seattle. We sat around for a couple of hours waiting to board. When it was time to board, they suddenly needed to reduce the number of passengers. They offered some amounts and then it was $1000 Amex cards - not flight vouchers and a free hotel to fly the next morning. I jumped at the offer for my husband & me. The hotel was even decent!
Some of the other passengers wanted to do the same, but they had checked luggage, and the airline was boarding passengers, so they wouldn’t stop to unload their suitcases. It literally paid to pack light!
Some of the other passengers wanted to do the same, but they had checked luggage, and the airline was boarding passengers, so they wouldn’t stop to unload their suitcases. It literally paid to pack light!
That is yet one more excellent reason to travel carryon-only: unpredictable economic benefits.
Air Canada looking for bumpees the last time we flew from Mtl to home - I think it started at a couple hundred bucks and I think I heard it get up to $1200 or something like that - god, I was so tempted, but we were coming home from our overseas holiday and I just wanted to get home...but so tempting - if I'd been solo, I just might have...
That is yet one more excellent reason to travel carryon-only: unpredictable economic benefits.
I'd consider it a risk! I've been offered incentives to bump but I've never accepted them, I want to get to my destination not have to wait another day and spend the time in a souless airport hotel. So for me, having checked luggage is a benefit if it lowers the chances of me being selected for a bump request.
The only time I've accepted an offer and it wasn't a "bump" as such was when my return flight was cancelled from Milan. I was in Rome to watch the Rugby and it was significantly cheaper to fly to Milan and take the train to Rome than it was to fly direct. We were notified of the cancellation at 11 pm the night before we were due to depart and were automatically placed on the early flight from Milan however there was no way that we would be able to make it back to Milan in time. As a result, after contacting the airline, we were booked on a flight from Rome two days later and resultant hotel costs, meals and wine were covered by British Airways. I was quite happy to spend another two days in Rome at BA's expense.
My husband and I are both retired and have little time constraints. Three years ago we were flying out of St. Louis to Newark on a United overbooked flight and opted for $1250 vouchers each! We were comped at a Marriott (with a great bar) overnight and food vouchers. That $2500 went toward business class seats to Paris a few months later. Please let us volunteer!
Yes, I always hope for a lucrative bump!
We were offered a flight the following day, and $800 CAN each about 18 years ago, but we were to meet our friends in Rome, so didn't take it.
Then a few years later, my flight Florence to Frankfurt was delayed, and when I arrived wheezing after running to get to the line to check in for the next leg back home, the woman in front of me said "Oh you just missed the offer of E1,200, a nice hotel and a flight tomorrow if you agreed to be bumped."
Darn!
I reckon my time is soon as third time lucky.....
And another reason to not plan to leave a country on the 'last permissible day'.
