tom911

He might end up spending a ton of money if he's looking for a pot of gold on the AA side. I remember getting 8 bumps one year on UA (around $3,000 in vouchers), mostly on the return flights on cheap mileage runs to Florida. After my move to AA in 2002, I learned pretty quickly there's no pot of gold here (more like a box of rocks if you're looking to VDB). I average about one a year, the most recent being two weeks ago from Sacramento.

In my 14 years with AA, I've only seen one IDB on any of my flights, and that was a Friday morning Presidents Weekend on SFO-DFW two years ago. A lot of that flight had cruise connections. Needed two volunteers and got one( me, continuing to DCA). The IDB passenger did not have a seat assignment and received a check for something around $600 (that might have been before the new compensation rules kicked in). He was rebooked on the next flight out. Come to think of it, I got bumped off that one, too, so scored twice that day.