Well, I took the voucher on an oversold LAS-ATL flight late Tuesday night for $1,000. As has been mentioned with the restrictions, it sounds like a much bigger deal than it actually is. If I'm reading it right it looks like you can include others but have to have the reservation in your name and be one of the passengers. I'm guessing you can pile on the optional-fee stuff like the bags, and the flight flexibility would seem to be a biggie if booking something months away (like a September trip to Alaska), but I haven't actually tried booking on one of these so I dunno for sure.

They also gave me a $10 meal voucher, for which there's an online system where they want a credit card number to monitor and reimburse. It's a little creepy and I gave it a card I don't use much, but it picked up right away a $10.27 buy at Cinnabon and will credit the $10 as promised in the e-mail.

They even sprung for a hotel, supposedly, which turned out to be not-so-valuable because the hotel's shuttle stopped running at 10 p.m., the flight left at 11:54 p.m. and the being-bumped part wasn't resolved 'til an hour later. I didn't want to pay my own way there for maybe 4-5 hours, so I just stayed in the airport (which I'm sure is what they wanted me to do).

The saving thing for all of it was having another flight at just after 8 a.m. that they got me on and in an exit-row-window seat (same as what I had on the earlier flight). If the schedule were thinner or the subsequent flights also oversold (as can happen later in the holidays) it'd be too dicey a thing.

I used to be a frequent bump-ee on the legacies in the golden age of that maybe 15+ years ago, and that was definitely better compensation (and more takers). This one might be worth it, though barely, and I can see why more people would be reluctant to take.