I have been on the author's side of that equation too many times to mention. Happens when you fly into the midwest a fair amount, and ORD gets hit with ground stops, so anything flying out of MSN has been shut down except there's one flight to DEN, maybe 50 passengers who want to get to SFO and only 10 seats left on the plane. I've always been in one of those 10 seats, even as a 2P.

Of course, reading that story, one wonders if the indignant guy with "16k in (his) account" was talking about credit card miles.