I am a bit confused about what the $30K offer was actually for. I am skeptical.
I also see they used a seatmap to determine how many seats were available. Of course they didn't understand why the seatmap showed more than the 4 seats which were actually available..
So, no AA was not marketing 17 seats. Apparenlty they realized on July 4 they were changed to a different airport for their July 23 flight. The only availability to fly from St Vincent was 4 seats, even though 17 seats were unassigned.
This was for flight 1427. I don't see any confirmation for AA 1427 in the images. On July 4, they weren't even booked for that July 23 flight. So, there being 4 seats available in not an issue for IDB, as they were not booked on that flight at the time.
The claim about marketing 17 seats was incorrect, based on them not understanding bookings can exist without seat assignments.
On page 6, for the first schedule change, it shows nothing for return, only the return flight from MIA. That should have been a big red flag. I find the next change even more confusing, missing airport codes..........Apparently the airport code was in subsquent email, but ignored. If you make reservations for a group of 9, 6-7 months in advance, be pro-active. Had this been checked after the first change, they would have seen the problem, and could have had it resolved.. On July 4, they should have taken the 4 seats available for July 23, And, the other could have stood buy. That flight clearly had seats for an infant an a parent to sit togeher. but apparently decided all 9 needed to fly together. Additionally, anytime there is a changed, especially with 9 people, you need to make sure everything had been done correctly. I guess another question is why was the flight changed to a different airport? I suspect, at the time, the St VInceent flgiht was no longer on the schedule and was added back. Otherwise the airport change didn't make sense, because they were already booked and months before AA would have considered it oversold, and needed to get rid of pax