great stories so far. thanks for sharing.

well i've had the luck? of being bumped (always voluntarily) off of a lot of flights between the US and Europe and India.

mainly received vouchers for $300 - 1000 and an upgrade on the next flight out + the usual hotel / phone call / food. on occasion a future trip is offered. but the best two have ironically happened this year.

in jan 3 from LHR - PIT on UA. there was a big storm in teh midwest / northeast and most of ua's flights were either cancelled or severely delayed for two days or so. arrived at LHR a good 3 hours before the filght and check in for my flight to ORD (in paid first) and received a letter at security informing of teh overbooked situation and asking for volunteers. i didn't really have to back in PIT for a couple of days so i volunteered and received
a free RT 1st tix between PIT-LHR + confirmed seat on the next days flight(of course) + $1000 voucher and hotel / food in london. not bad for one day's delay.

second was between AMS - BOM on KL. booked in econ with a miles upgrade to Biz. at the gate volunteers are being recruited and since a lot of people were with families or elderly they were having a hard time convincing people. i wasn't really interested either but was curios to see the offer. they were offering @ $750 cash + a confirmed seat on a NW flight to DEL w/ a domestic connex to BOM. this wasn't very appealing a NW uses there ancient DC 10 and there are no flights between DEL - BOM after midnight (the @ arrival tiem of teh NW flight) but they really need volunteers so i decided to negotiate and finally managed to get - a confirmed Biz class seat on a KL flight to DXB ( about two hours later)and then a EK flight to BOM + $ 1000 voucher + refund of my miles for the original upgrade. and since I was going to DXB from BOM anyways later that week I rescheduled my work and connected three days laetr to BOM and saved an additional $800.

good luck to everyone.

regards
indogulf