Originally Posted by
Often1
OP's post doesn't remotely suggest -- as he says -- that "it pays" to put in a crazy number. If DL handed him a $1,000 VDB, that would be a different story. But, DL paid the pretty standard VDB (not only for DL, but for the other legacies) for the rough length of that flight.
Bidding appears to have only occasional bearing on VDB and really isn't anything that you can't handle by walking up to the GA anyway. It appears to largely be a form of consumer survey which DL can use to figure out what it generally-speaking needs to offer in order to attract VDB's when needed.
To each his/her own, but I assume OP believes that he received an extra 12,000 Miles for placing a bid for $1,000 instead of a more conventional value. If one values them at $0.01 per mile, that's an extra $120 there, and considering he paid $150 for his ticket, $620 is over four times the cost of his ticket in exchange for a shortened layover time while making his original connection. Considering he has no status based on his FT profile, I wonder if his bid had any effect on his resulting VDB, as I also have never heard of one being given Miles on top of an ECV for a VDB or an IDB, for that matter.
And I can confirm from my experience as well that bidding for a VDB is nothing but a survey. I have received the bidding screen in the past for flights that could not possibly be overbooked, most recently for SEA-LAX where they were still selling one seat in H up to four in Y and one in F. This is why I never bid less than the price paid for my ticket when I rarely am able to take a VDB, rounded down to the nearest $100, and take the first opportunity to inquire at the gate.
And on a side note, when I saw the title of the thread, I thought the OP received a crazy itinerary for putting an obscene number on Priceline.
