How Much were Delta Flyers in Grand Rapids Offered to Get Bumped?
Joe Cortez July 01, 2022
Grand Rapids ABC affiliate WZZM-TV reports flyers were offered the five-digit payout on an oversold flight from the Western Michigan city to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP).
“Ten. Thousand. Dollars.”
The flight in question was scheduled to depart from Grand Rapids Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR) on Monday, June 27, 2022, at 6:45 a.m. According to FlightAware.com, the flight is operated by SkyWest Airlines on behalf of Delta utilizing a 76-seat Embraer E-175 regional jet.
Prior to departure, gate agents informed passengers that the flight was overbooked and they were seeking volunteers to get bumped to a later flight. Compensation for taking a later flight reportedly started at $5,000, but quickly increased to $10,000 when volunteers were slow to show up.
According to those aboard the flight, the payout was not offered as a travel credit towards future Delta travel. Instead, it was a cash payment on a Visa gift card, or direct to passengers via Apple Pay. Under federal law, flyers who are involuntarily denied boarding from their flight are only entitled to up to $1,550 in cash if they are rebooked with an arrival delay of two hours or more.
On @Delta flight from GRR to MSP and they just offered $10,000 for people to give up their seats.…
Ten. Thousand. Dollars.
— Jason Aten (@JasonAten) June 27, 2022
Writing about the experience for Inc. Magazine, flyer Jason Aten confirmed the $10,000 compensation story, noting a gate attendant saying: “If you have Apple Pay, you’ll even have the money right now.”
“Yes, $10,000 is a lot of money, but it was clearly better than forcing eight people to miss their connections and ruining their plans,” wrote Aten for Inc., saying he was unable to take the payout for undisclosed reasons. “The people who volunteered did the math and decided that it was worth it to change their plans because, obviously, that is a lot of money.”
Neither Delta nor SkyWest have confirmed the exact amount of the offered payout, but a Delta spokesperson told WZZM gate agents are authorized to do “whatever necessary” to help flights depart on schedule.
Payout Comes as Delta Sees Increased Network Stress
The reports of enhanced compensation for bumped volunteers comes as Delta faces one of their most stressful years to date. Ahead of the 2022 Independence Day holiday weekend, the Atlanta-based carrier offered anyone flying between July 1 and 4 a systemwide fare difference travel waiver to rebook outside of the holiday. Days later, airline chief executive Ed Bastian posted an apology on LinkedIn, telling flyers: “If you’ve encountered delays and cancellations recently, I apologize. We’ve spent years establishing Delta Air Lines as the industry leader in reliability, and though the majority of our flights continue to operate on time, this level of disruption and uncertainty is unacceptable.”
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I believe it, I took an 5 grand offer. Although there wasnt a option of cash or check. You basically have to pick the money worth in gift cards, 500 at time, guess i should sign up for apple pay.
I thought I had scored when I got $700 from UA for a voluntary bump from first to economy, on a seat that was upgraded for free (1K)
~450 miles GRR-MSP. Could fly private for a couple grand and bank the rest.
Book a full-fare, fully refundable ticket on a flight that already looks full (check the seat map). Go to the airport and wait for an offer to be bumped; otherwise don't take the flight and get a refund.
I don't think it works this way. In order to receive an offer to get bumped, you must have cleared security at least and checked in. Most likely to also try to board the plane. At which point you can no longer refund your ticket.
Let us know if your hack has a chance.
This sounds like fraud, morally and ethically if not legally.
If you're a greedy, selfish prick, then yes - go for it!
Besides offering money to take a later flight, they should also offer money to simply forget the flight and return to their city of origin (assuming you are asked at the point of transfer). This should be on top of a full refund of the ticket.
Once I was flying EWR IAH TGU on UA and was offered 4000 to fly the next day. I said I would e happy with 4000 plus full ticket refund to be sent back to EWR, but that wasn't on offer.
That would have been nice i could have gotten my 200K skymiles back with the offer.
I have done exactly that--1999 on an TPA-MIA-YYZ AA routing. I'd booked the AC nonstop TPA-YYZ, and a colleague (AA exec platinum) who was at MIA decided to join me at the last minute. As I was happy for the company, I made a second booking to match with his, meeting him @ MIA and was just going to cancel the AC flight. Got to the airport, bought the ticket at the ticket counter, went out to the satellite to find that there was a bump situation--got the $200 (as I recall), retraced my steps back to the ticket counter, got the ticket credited and called my colleague to tell him I'd meet him in the morning!~