i dont think we know the flight was changed like a week before departure
with different departure and arrival times. is this common?
he had to change his schedule to make his flight.
Yes, its common as airlines experience schedule changes all the time and in your case the airline (south west) notified you (your son) well in advance of the flight. If the new flight schedule does not work for you, within reason, you can request a more suitable replacement flight or you could cancel without fee.
but i was also looking for info on overbooked flights and volunteering compensation also. because our plans our open in a flight we are taking soon and if requested i would volunteer. i want to know the appropriate compensation. should a family of 4 offer to volunteer? or would one or two of us be ok. are we guaranteed next flight status?
are miles offered, points, cash, future flights?
we are flying
LAX-Miami- MCO
MCO-charlotte- NAS
NAS-Miami-LAX
(over a 2 week period)
It will depend upon if your flight is oversold or not and how many seats the airline has to deny boarding. Usually the gate agent would announce they need people to volunteer and you can approach the gate agent to inquire about compensation and alternate flights. The amount of compensation is usually depend upon flight routes, and if the airline cannot find volunteers (VDB) then they would start deny boarding involuntary (i.e., IDB) with a higher compensation to those affected. You could invest sometime to browse thru the airline specific forums to see if there are existing threads.
[edit to add] Different airline may have different rules for compensation. OP, if your next set of flights are on southwest again, they appear to have uniform pricing for denied boarding compensation irrespective of routes. The rules are published at southwest airline's website and a quick Google search would land you right there.