The first flight I remember (though not the first one I took) was in December of 1977 (I was 8). Flying Burbank (CA - outside LA) to Seattle on Continental to spend Christmas with my uncle's family.

Evidently, everyone else wanted to fly on that flight, so Continental went for broke in freeing up the five seats our family had by paying for:

1) A taxi to LAX,
2) $400 "cash" compensation (as in they sent us a check, not a flight credit),
3) First Class on United from LAX to SEA (been a United and First Class fan ever since) for all five of us,
4) A taxi from SEA to my uncle's place, which is about 60 minutes away.

And we were travelling on a "cheap" ticket (these were the days before deregulation, so I am sure even "cheap" was expensive)...