Originally Posted by
clr4t8koff
Understood. Please see OP - Agent confirms oversold by 9, not overbooked. His words not mine.
The agent was sloppy and wrong. Not unheard of. His statement does not matter. But, if you repeat the term, it will.
If there are 100 seats available on a flight, the carrier sells 110 and 105 people who up by T-15, the flight is overbooked by 10 and oversold by 5. The former does not matter. The latter does as it dictates the # of people which the carrier will need to offload by IDB/VDB as the case may be.
This matters to the carrier, although phone agents have nothing to do with it, because carriers deliberately overbook, using predictive software to only overbook by enough that there will not be an oversale. Thus, 110 seats sold and only 100 passengers show up by T-15 meaning that the flight is overbooked by 10, but not oversold.