ktown

Flying MCI to MSP at 9:02 this morning (6/18). Volunteered for $400 at checkin in. Ticketing agent at bag check told me they were oversold by 6, and they had bumped 5 people off the earlier flight.

At the gate, I inquired, and I was told they could not get me on another flight until 7:37 p.m., and she offered me $600 for the 10 hour delay at MCI. I politely said I was hoping for more for that long of a delay, and she said she had people that had volunteered for $300, so she would process them first.

I thought she was bluffing because I knew half of the people on that plane where leaving the conference I had attended, and they were connecting onwards in MSP, and I had also looked at dummy bookings for DTW, CVG, and ATL, and found very little availability, so I thought that the onward connections would be tough that late in MSP, and rerouting may have been difficult as well.

I don't know what she ended up offering anyone that took a bump (enough people were volunteering that she never made an announcement), but she never came back to me. Maybe local residents took the bump and just went home for the day.

Obviously, I wanted to get home and see my kids after 8 days away, but was I out of line to think I could have gotten more than $600 for spending the whole day at MCI (which doesn't necessarily have the trappings of an MSP)?