Originally Posted by
warakorn
I would seriously advise not to accept such vouchers.
The voucher can only redeemed with the issueing airline.
These vouchers are useless, if you catch a good on a codeshare (operated by the issueing airline, but sold by another airline) or if a consolidator (via an OTA) sells a good fare. Airline-owned booking sites do not see all available fares (which a Kayak meta search machine can see).
It's not 100% clear whether a phone booking will be waived if the voucher cannot be redeemed online.
A EUR 600 cash payment does not expire, can be booked for other people, can be used for other airlines (and codeshares) ..... etc etc
I can understand your point of view.
On the other hand I (I'm not the OP though) would accept a voucher as usually AF/KL offer good rates for my favorite destinations.
Apart from that, even if I know it's almost same, to me, if I receive a 600 € compensation, I will be happy as I got 600 € for free in my account but as I love to travel I know for sure I want to spend that extra 600 € on buying a flight. When I buy the flight, I will be "sad" as I will be thinking I just spent 600 € from my own money. However, if I decide to just accept the voucher, I won't feel "bad" when I use it to buy a flight because that money was never mine.
I know, I know, this is just psychological but I now MY mind would be like that.