Ouch. Sounds almost like 'no good deed goes unpunished'. I do appriciate your attitude.

I'm wondering if presented with the offer again, one could ask to be put on the next flight immedatly and not have to 'wait around in case'. Also may be worth sending a complaint in hopes of some sort of compensation that you tried to help them out but ened up bing penalized, if you have the time.

Moderator note: yes; merged with existing thread.

I've never had them rebook me before they closed the door. First of all, they're extremely busy trying to board the flight. Second, they know no-shows are a possibility.

But I've also never seen them give my seat away until they have everyone standing there in front of them. I've always VDB'd from J, so if they gave my seat away, and then tried to shove me in 34B, that would not work.

It was my first time trying VDB, so I wasn't sure what to expect either way. Maybe I could try asking for compensation, but under what reason? I didn't pay for an assigned seat to start. Do you perhaps have a link that I could try submitting through, as the links in the wiki above don't seem to cover this option. TIA

If I was confirmed on the next flight, I'd be back on the lounge before they could think about it.

Frequently enough I'd rather the $500 vs 5 hours (or whatever), I wouldn't consider maybe $500 for maybe being nice and maybe worse.

Wanted to provide an update on this. I ended up submitting through the “general concerns” form. I explained the situation basically as I did here on FT, and asked for compensation for having to sit in the last row of the aircraft, a worse seat than the original, for trying to help them.

They got back to me quickly, in a day or two, apologising and giving me a 20% off discount code. It’s 20% off for flights in Canada/US, and the greater of 20% off or $75 (Y or PY) or $225 (J) for international destinations. But only applicable on undiscounted base fares, not on surcharges, taxes, etc. The discount is per passenger for up to 4 passengers on the same reservation. And it can only be used on AC, UA and LH group operated flights. Lastly, travel must take place one year from the email. Hope this can be informative for anyone else seeking compensation for similar events.

Additionally, they mentioned they would forward my case file to their “airport management team in Toronto” for their info and internal review. I wonder what results this might have. I can certainly say the gate agent who handled my VDB request was nice and tried their best, it must have been someone else at the gate who gave my seat away. And having flown this exact route before, I’ve seen these agents handling this flight several times before.

Rather strange. Boarded AC to LGA. They asked for volunteers and I volunteered but next flight was at 4.30pm which was too late for me. They had a J seat on the 12pm flight but they said they could not put me on that. VDB was already up to $1200 and still no takers. Seems odd that they would not put me in J on a 1hr flight and give me $800 voucher but they will IDB someone else.
Update : I was comfortably seated on the plane, flight finished boarding and they came and got me and asked if I was still interested in taking an offer for a later flight. I got a $2k voucher and am now on the 12pm flight in economy. All good.

That 12p flight was probably oversold too though. J might be +2, but Y could be -5. So they won't move you to that flight.

I remember VDBing once and the person in front of me wanted the 0800 the next day, but it was full in Y, so they couldn't get anything until the afternoon. I was in J, so they had no problem putting me on the 0800.

I did end up on the 12pm flight. That was the latest flight I could accept and still reach NYC in time for my meeting. I remember the GA saying Y was full on the 12pm, maybe oversold? I had offered to go to any of the three NYC airports and even on UA if they could rebook me.
Not really sure what happened but I suspect someone else either upgraded to J or was bumped up to J and then I was given the seat in Y.
The GA gave me a confirmed seat in Y for the 12pm flight along with my $2k voucher. Then I got a text from AC saying I was upgraded. Then about 30 mins later downgraded to Y. My seat in Y was exactly what the GA had given me when I left the original flight.

If you want my wild (but not insane) guess, the flight was something like J5 Y-4. Dealing with an overbooking on your flight, shoving you into your ticketed cabin on the new flight was reasonable, given the flight was not overbooked.

With J5 Y-5, some system (or person) decided to process an op-up, knowing it would be necessary, but hoping it would help RM or operations or some other group.

And then things changed, and someone downgraded you, because you had zero entitlement to J.

But overbookings are weird and agents have extreme latitude in resolving those. An operational upgrade on a 90 minute flight probably has a book value of dozens of dollars. A $2000 voucher probably has a book value of $1500.

My record was still a case (I've hinted at this, but I don't think ever described it) where I had positioned to YVR with a Y FP credit (and had another one booked for the return), and had a PY fare YVR-TPE immediate turn. I was flying with another FTer who lived in YVR. YVR-TPE was overbooked. I pulled out my laptop at the gate to look at alternatives, but many of the Asia flights had already left, and the remaining ones were full (in J). This was pre-1A where we wouldn't have been rebooked in R (but J), so we proposed YVR-YYZ-LHR-YYC (all wide-bodies) -YVR (narrow). The supervisor had no issue with that. But I asked if I could just go to YYC, because my real destination was SFO, and it was easier for me to just rebook my FP from YYC.

The supervisor ended up just booking me back to SFO in J. So not only did we get $800 CAD (this was pre-APPR), but I got a FP credit back.

We didn't care where we flew, and that made us very good candidates for them, once they were aware.

There was a managerial override needed to change our destination continent, but taking empty J seats on not-full flights was absolutely worth it to them to prevent an IDB on a daily (or less?) flight.

With the 150% instead of 125%, we still got the SQM (or AQM, at the time) we wanted.

I kept hoping for an overbooked YYT-YYZ when I was flying home, where I could get them to rebook me YYT-LHR-SFO, and pay me for it. But it never happened. Maybe one day from an Atlantic province.

That being said, it's been almost a year since my last $2k VDB, so I think it's time for another one.

Best I had was rebooking in LGA to an over booked flight. $2400 CAD VDB check for 3pax. Then we took them up on a VDB offer for that flight, netting us $4800cad cash money.

Still mad that the third oversold flight has a family of 4 not get through security in time for us to VDB a third time.

My original flight was oversold by 2 in Y and J was full. Not sure if stayed that way but I did not see anyone else accept the offer so I assume that Y became oversold by 1, perhaps someone misconnected.
All other flights till 12pm had no space in Y. The 12pm to LGA that they put me on was J1 and Y was full but not oversold.

Willing to change your flight? We’ve got options
 

Just received an email about a week out from departure YVR-YYZ with an offer to change to five alternative flights, all within an hour or two of original departure time. Compensation was $200CAD/passenger in the form of an 'Air Canada discount code'. Took the offer, and the code was sent immediately by email; it is valid for one year.

Edited to add (because I thought it was a bit sneaky to not state the credit terms before accepting): the credit is non-transferrable, so must be used by each of the passengers on the booking. I couldn't find any other details about similar emails, so this looks like a new automated system of some sort.

T-44 hours or so, email offering me and 2 companions CA$2400 each to volunteer to take a later flight. Currently Y4 (one of the ex Lynx fins). Seems wild for a 2h flight… Any other day and I’d take it hands down but it would be pretty inconvenient in this case.