Overbooked flight...but not really
Had a bit of a weird experience today flying ATH-AMS.
At the gate an announcement was made requesting a volunteer to take a later flight due to overbooking. Nobody moved so after a few minutes I thought to ask what they were offering.
Turns out they were offering 400 euro cash, a free Aegean flight in the future, and re-routing today with Swiss (Arrival 22:30 instead of 15:45).
I thought that was worth a few more hours waiting in the lounge so I accepted. She invalidated my boarding pass and asked me to come back to the gate after boarding to make the arrangements.
So while the rest of the flight boards I call around to change my schedule, arrange different transport from the airport, etc. After boarding I go to the desk and to my surprise she tells me that they don't need me to take another flight. My old BP is already re-activated and she asks me to go board now as the flight is waiting. Uhh..
Is this common procedure? I can understand that they are not entirely sure about how many volunteers they need - but once they announce and commit I would expect them to stick to it. In my case it was very inconvenient as now I had to board in a rush, as the last one - with large hand luggage, and I had to change my appointments once more. Can't say I was very happy about how the thing was handled.
Maybe I'm making too much about nothing though? Also I noticed that now they only serve one single drink on the 3:30hr flight - together with the snack. They used to make multiple drink rounds, but the last two flights only had the one opportunity to get some water in economy.