I had an interesting experience two years ago around Christmas. I was flying DAY-ORD-LAX, but due to weather in ORD, I asked GA to reroute me to DAY-IAD-LAX. My parents were flying from YOW to meet me in ORD before flying to LAX together, but I called them and asked them to change to IAD as well. We met at IAD, and went to the gate for the IAD-LAX flight. The flight was overbooked and there were over 50 standbys. It was a mess and people were yelling at GA etc....My parents knew they had no chance of getting on that flight because they were GM. The GA called my name and gave me the last seat of the plane (in F). My parents told me to go ahead and fly to LAX first and they would join me next morning. I entered the plane, but my heart told me I should stay with my parents, so I walked out of the plane and told the GA that I decided to not fly. He was about to go crazy being yelled by the rest of standbys, so he didn't even care and just said "whatever." I ended up flying with my parents the next day, but still got credit for the IAD-LAX flight from the previous night that I never took.