Bumped UA passenger awarded $10,000

[rotornut]

United Airlines gives $10,000 voucher to traveller on overbooked flight - World - CBC News (http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/united-airlines-passenger-walks-away-with-10-000-voucher-1.4590801)

[G-CPTN]

But it's just a voucher - not cash.

[Dee Vee]

But it's just a voucher - not cash.

They bumped her because she was the "lowest paying" passenger

Interesting priority list they have these days..

I suppose if you were flying with a dog, they'd move you to first class.

[wiedehopf]

i don't quite understand.
why don't they choose like on a bidding auction.
they just raise the voucher amount until someone say they will leave.

choosing randomly and then pressuring them into leaving will just produce more 10000$ payouts especially with the publicity this is getting.

[flash8]

Probably because this was designed purely to give much needed publicity to the airline.

10K is dirt cheap if the publicity is positive!

[kristofera]

I would be interested in knowing the terms and conditions for that voucher.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is single use, no residual value, valid for same market/route only, same passenger only, expires in 3 months, etc etc...? :)

[aterpster]

I would be interested in knowing the terms and conditions for that voucher.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is single use, no residual value, valid for same market/route only, same passenger only, expires in 3 months, etc etc...? :)

I suspect toilet paper is worth more than UAL script.

[AAGpilot]

I guess you can name your price on UA these days. After the Dr. Dao incident that is.

[ExXB]

We don’t have the whole story. Apparently the flight was not oversold but the aircraft had a broken seat. I suspect they did ask for volunteers but none came forward.

I doubt if she actually did have the lowest fare, that would be difficult for a gate agent to determine. More likely she was the one assigned the broken seat and offloading her meant that other pax seat assignments didn’t need to be changed.

She said she was offered a $3,000 voucher but asked for cash. Then she was offered the 10K voucher. Likely UA wanted to expedite the departure.

The actual cost to UA could be almost nothing if she ends up using voucher on half-empty airplanes. If she takes seats others would have paid cash for then UA will have lost revenue opportunities, not cash.

[ExXB]

Status passengers are indeed flagged in the systems. Everyone else is no-status. If they are ranked it is more likely it is done by that pax’s total annual spend, rather than the price of that flight’s ticket.

[scr1]

Status passengers are indeed flagged in the systems. Everyone else is no-status. If they are ranked it is more likely it is done by that pax’s total annual spend, rather than the price of that flight’s ticket.

Some airlines systems do deicide who is to be offloaded/ put on standby based on the price paid. The system does it automatically based on price paid the gate agent just sees offload pax XYX

[WHBM]

I wouldn't be surprised if it is single use, no residual value, valid for same market/route only, same passenger only, expires in 3 months, etc etc...?
And commonly only valid for a fare bucket that has no availability on any meaningful flight. Hahaha say Yield Management.

[costalpilot]

the OP must have a degree in "journalism." the title certainly got me to look at the thread, and it could hardly be more misleading.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Apparently the flight was not oversold but the aircraft had a broken seat.
The clever trick, I once discovered, is to advise the cabin crew that the seat is broken after take-off. That way you might have an uncomfortable ride but at least you get there.

[Piltdown Man]

GTW - I thought you were sensible person who applied common sense aviation. Are you really telling me that you would sit in an unserviceable seat? Seats are not inop’ed for the hell of it. Getting home is important, but let’s do it safely.

Airline on-load/off-load policies are not random. Every passenger has a value generated by profiling systems. The class of seat, ticket price, booking history, frequent flyer programme status, booking method, check-in time, past flight history etc. are all used to generate a value. When an over-booking occurs, the passengers with the least overall value will be generally be denied boarding. The same applies to an upgrade with the exception that upgrades are not generally offered to the same person twice. Otherwise too many Frequent Flyers would book only ever cheap seats in the expectation they will be upgraded on busy flights.

And I agree with the sentiments expressed by kristofera; it’s the small print that matters. Only if you can spend it like cash does it have a value. If not, second prize would be $20,000 dollar voucher.

PM

[Gertrude the Wombat]

GTW - I thought you were sensible person who applied common sense aviation. Are you really telling me that you would sit in an unserviceable seat?
In fact the seat back wouldn't stay up, and it reclined slowly over many minutes, and I didn't work out what was going on until after take-off. I didn't get moved because there were no spare seats on the aircraft, so it was a good think I hadn't spotted the problem and reported it before take-off.

[scotneil]

Never mind getting moved to 1st class if you have a dog - with United just be glad if they don't kill your dog !

[Mark in CA]

Wouldn't surprise me if this were an intentional PR ploy by UA in an effort to start turning around customer perception of the airline.