I flew VIE-ZAD a few days ago in E195. At the gate, they were paging for 6 volunteers to fly via MUC and ZAG. I volunteered, waited for the boarding to be completed and... being told "thanks, but we don't need any more volunteers, as these 6 pax did not show up." On a side note, in the lounge I was upgraded to C. After the boarding was completed, I was put back into M and given the last seat at the very end of the plane. The gate agent was very apologetic and even suggested that she can rebook me for free to fly VIE-MUC-ZAD in C but without compensation. I declined. If I had needed more mile this year to re-qualify for HON, it would have been a nice 5,000 HON bonus for free. On board, the pursue came, also apologized for a "downgrade" and offered to bring C "meal". I thanked but declined.

However, the true highlight was on LX93 a few weeks ago on a routing EZE-GRU-ZRH. EZE-GRU was empty but GRU-ZRH was full, with M overbooked by 32 (!!!), Y by 19, C by 5 and F by 1, according to the station manager. And all pax in both EZE and GRU showed up. GRU manager did not expect all pax in GRU to show up (as the station manager said "otherwise, we would have sent EZE pax with LH but the computer said that it would go with F0C0Y0M5"). I was in F and volunterred to fly the next day. I was first rebooked on LX via ZRH the next day and then moved to LH and even managed to get 2A, got F miles (was on "I" that upgraded to "O" for 999 EUR), and arrived home at 11:45 am instead of 15:00. All extra C pax went with AF. All extra M went with TK, KL and QR. And extra Y pax flew to GIG and went with LH. At the end, nobody was denied boarding. But it was interesting to observe how pax were being told "we have better seat for you on GIG-MUC flight" or "We have decided that you will enjoy nonstop to CDG, so we rebooked you on a nonstop with AF. Overall, they handled the situation excellently, but also because pax showed up very early for check in (at 15:00 the line was huge).

I also inquired whether LX would rebook me to fly via US if LH/LX in F was full the next day(s) from either GRU or EZE and what routing would have been possible. The response was "Anything with F availability on LH/LX from any point that you can reach from GRU as long as F segment is with LH/LX and you are OK to divert". For fun, I asked if GRU-LIM-LAX-FRA with LA and LH would be possible. The answer was affirmative. However, they would not rebook to AF in F from GRU on the same day, as "we don't have authority for this and only call center can do this." Maybe because I was in I/O that there was some resistance.