I was offered more than 24 hours in advance to change to a non-stop flight instead of a connection, in exchange for $250 travel credit. It was not a volunteer situation. It was all done by email and there was no bidding involved. When you clicked through the link it presented different flights for different incentive prices. My first time being successful to actually received the incentive from such a situation

It made sense on a whole bunch of levels to switch, not just because of the cash, but simply the Non-Stop which was originally priced more than my connection, hence I had booked it