Originally Posted by
irishguy28
It's not! As the title says, it's a simple case of overbooking, and acceptance by the passenger of an offer to travel on any other service means that this is a case of voluntary denied boarding. EC261/2004 therefore does not apply.
When I took my first ever A3 flight last year (OSL-ATH) they asked me at check-in at the airport if I would like to take a later flight and accept €250; given that I was in business class and the later flight would be economy, and that I only had one day in Athens before flying onwards, I declined.
You are quoting a little selectively.
As I said later on, when I laid out the other criteria in which EC261 would apply, airlines do not offer money seven weeks in advance of a flight on a potential overbooking - they wait until check-in, as in your case.
This means that, whatever the background, this is not going to be EC261 related - either on time change or IDB. I'm merely covering all bases.
In the case of VDB, of course, the payment is between the passenger and the airline, so there's no legal framework that compels the airline to pay cash. It'll therefore become a negotiation, and might well end up as travel vouchers. That's why more details as to the circumstances behind the offer, which seem a little unusual, would be helpful so the OP can be guided as to what payment form A3 is likely to offer.