Originally Posted by SS255

I woke up at 2:45 AM to a text that my 5:30AM from LAX-ORD was cancelled "due to operational issues." Despite every flight to ORD and EWR being booked full, I went to LAX, anyway, in the hopes of getting onto the 7:01AM on standby. I could still make my connection from ORD-AVP if I got onto the 7:01. That flight was overbooked by 9. I was #1 on the standby list, but no standbys cleared. They started the VDB offers at $1,700, and escalated it by a few hundred dollars until it got up to $3,500. They finally got enough takers. The 35 of us on the standby list rolled over to the next flight.