In reality it should make no difference if a passenger who flies once every 25 years pays $1 for a seat or a million mile passenger pays $10,000 for a seat. Nobody should be denied boarding involuntarily simply because there are not enough seats. Instead, they airline should pay whatever is the market cleaning rate to get volunteers to give up their seats.
High mileage flyers who pay big money for their tickets certainly deserve to be treated like the loyal customers they are with perks such as being high on the upgrade list, use of lounges, special numbers to call if there is a problem, etc.
Voluntary transactions are the best. Coercion is the worst way to handle the problem.
This article makes that case very well.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...#disqus_thread
It could have bid higher. And it should have. A "reverse auction" like this would ultimately have elicited enough volunteers, happy to take later flights for the right price. Let the market determine that price, the same way United tests the market for its ticket prices.