One Family Made $11K by Not Flying With Delta
Ryan Boyd April 11, 2017
Due to storms that caused outages and delays over the weekend, one family was able to collect more than $11,000 – all from not flying with Delta Air Lines. Laura Begley Bloom, a travel editor, chronicled the experience in a Forbes article.
“When I went to check in online on Saturday and saw that the flight was delayed by more than an hour and that Delta was already asking for volunteers to give up their seats, I turned to my husband and said, ‘Cha-ching!’
“Indeed, when we got to the airport, the airline started offering money to volunteers…$300…$600…$900…$1,000…$1,300. Bingo! We took the offer of $1,300 per person. The airline also threw in lunch ($15 each) and round-trip taxi fare (worth about $50). Do the math — that’s almost $4,000 for a family of three. The airline assured us that we would get confirmed seats on Sunday.”
To read more on this story, go to Consumerist.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
Why would anyone "feel guilty for making so much $ off the airline"? I sure wouldn't.
Another more in depth article stated they were offered their compensation in the form of retail gift cards, of which Am Ex cards were offered which they took. Not quite cash but better than travel vouchers
This article is quite confusing. How is "almost $4,000" "more than $11,000"? According to he source they actually got around $4k for skipping their first flight, then the next day another 4k for skipping their rescheduled flight, and finally another 3k for forfeiting their tickets on the third day. However, they didn't actually get $11k but rather some vouchers, which clearly isn't the same. @amanuensis: Obviously they also got the money for their tickets back.
Delta is happy to "accommodate" a travel editor. See, this is how you get great PR at minimal cost. Take notes United
The math is off here. Part of what they are counting is money that was originally paid by them in the first place back when they originally bought their tickets.