Originally Posted by
BenA
Oversale shouldn’t play into this - the amount DL is willing to oversell a flight is already baked into the availability in the GDS. If an alternate flight is Y0 and there are no seats, though, you won’t be able to get protected on it - and I don’t think there’s a “standby protection” process as it does require a confirmable seat.
May be you're onto something. May be DL won't do it as F/J is so often greatly oversold...and the only time they did it (from HNL-MSP to HNL-ATL or vice versa, I forgot) was on a standby, and I was told that the other flight is oversold by 3 seats in the F/J cabin, so there is practically no chance that 3 pax won't show up and I can get on it (in the end 2 didn't show up, but as
#3 on the "seat request" list I didn't get on). So may be it only works if you are flying in Y that usually flies at least some empty seats, and it probably helps if you're a lower status customer (DL seems to value occasional flier business much more than that of frequent travelers who spend more).