Originally Posted by
MiamiAirport Formerly NY George
That's happen to me once where compensation was offered proactively online. Presumably as Often1 indicated the oversell is so massive AA fully anticipates the flight being oversold even after accounting for no shows and misconnects. It's very rare. 95% of the time if you volunteer you won't be needed. It just blows me away the number of people that check in for a flight and don't make it to the airport.
BTW I've come to the conclusion that a lot of those what will you bid to volunteer are fishing expeditions by AA to determine how low can they go with bump offers.
AA, of course, mines the data to determine what it is that would cause someone to accept a rebooking. Makes all the sense in the world. There is no advantage to the passenger in volunteering online for possible VDB at the gate. If you do add yourself, you are not obligated to accept rebooking or the VDB to which you agreed and if you do not volunteer online, you may still volunteer at the gate.
I should add to the list of "no shows" items which are not "no shows" but do result in availability, e.g. SDC and fee-free changes.