Dave Noble

Why would you take $250 when you could have had the mandatory EUR600 under EC261?

Regardless, in such a situation the airline is liable for providing meals during a delay, so no reason to get vouchers agreed

Often1

Not necessarily. If OP did not volunteer, perhaps somepone else might have. Then OP would not have his $250 towards the BOG ticket. Alternatively, maybe nobody would have volunteered even after AA jacked the offer to $1,000 as would be fairly typical. At that point, AA can IDB someone and pay up the EUR 600 in cash (equivalent), a food voucher / reimbursement and possibly another EUR 300-600 depending on the length of the delay caused by the IDB at the final ticketed destination.

So, bottom line is that if $250 is too little, OP should not have taken it. If $250 + food voucher or maybe a flat $300 was acceptable, that is what he ought to have told the GA.

mvoight

You also save the federal excise tax on the $250 that is normally included when you are quoted a fare.

Nicoolio

Pretty clear I think -- somebody was going to accept the $250 and OP would have ended up on his original flight without $250.

Dave Noble

ok - why would anyone accept less than the stipulated compensation mandated in the EU?

sbrower

Because it is voluntary and they aren't necessarily the one who will get the stipulated compensation.

btonkid12345

But the point is - the airline has to pay out the higher amount in cash if no one accepts - so it is in the best interest for any volunteers to point that out and have them up the offer to, at a minimum, that amount.

Even if OP and the 1 other person were the only two volunteers, both of them holding out for 600EUR in a voucher means each has a 50% chance of getting it (which is an expected payout of 300EUR, or better than the 250 they were offering).

And, AA wins because they don't pay it in cash, but rather a voucher, and still avoid the process of IDB. 350EUR additional in the form of an AA voucher with a high spoilage rate is nothing; I am shocked that AA doesn't have procedures that mandates 600EUR as the minimum amount to offer for any EU departure, honestly. I am also not surprised, though, that the staff in Iceland felt like 250 ($ or EUR, whatever) was a lot for taking another flight.

exwannabe

If the 2 pax did get together and hold out, AA would raise the offer and more pax would accept as the price went up. So again they would end up with the original flight and no money, which was a less desirable outcome for them than what OP got.

This is like an auction with a minimum bid. Why would anybody ever pay over the minimum when the seller will sell for that. The reason they do is it is their best interest to pay more than not get the deal.

The EU compensation is based on FORCING somebody to another flight. This case is the airline offering the passenger an option.

MSPeconomist

BThumme

II'm just looking out for other flyers. The low amount is only part of the story. I've never heard of a VDB amount that low at all, for any flight to any destination, and this is coming from someone who frequents the AA and UA VDB threads. If this was posted in one of those threads, I'm fairly certain there would be many similar responses to mine.

As I said though, the low amount is only half the issue for me. AA still should have provided OP meal vouchers. I think that's extremely cheap of them, and I feel that AA (or rather the outsourced agents, can't recall if they work this flight) took advantage of the flyer. I can empathize with the poster, which no one else in this thread seems to want to do. AA isn't going to make or break their business profits with offering a $10-20 meal voucher for a 7 hr VDB (that also potentially got them out of the EU comp). Airlines need to take care of their flyers for helping them out which I, and now OP, don't feel they did.

Who knows, perhaps this might impact OP's choice to fly AA in the future. Or maybe they will look back it in a couple weeks and laugh at it en route to BOG. None of that is going to change the fact that I think AA lowballed this hard, which does irk me.

sbrower

You may post in those threads, but your knowledge is somewhat limited. I have accepted $100 (1 hour delay on PSA from LAS to SNA). I have seen recent offers as low as $250 when they needed 20 people to wait a whole day to go from Mammoth to LAX (but the final price, to get 20 volunteers, was closer to $1000.

bse118

You are making a big assumption that pax even know that the EU compensation laws exist, let alone how much money they might qualify for under various circumstances...

Why would AA set a minimum VBD voucher equal to the amount required by the EU for IDB, when AA can get passengers to accept voluntary for less than that amount? Would make no sense.

btonkid12345

Because it makes life easier for GAs and passengers...a difference of 350EUR in a voucher with a high spoilage rate is nothing if it helps them meet D0.

And, because then they reduce their IDB rate by setting a minimum payout equivalent to EC261 payout. Duh.

BThumme

A $100 offer for a one hour delay seems like a very fair starting point (I'd even bite at that). Now just extrapolate that a little bit farther out to 7 hours.

I would hope requiring passengers to stay overnight at least included food vouchers and a hotel...and that puts us right back to my point, that the volunteers need to be taken care of. $250 for an overnight delay and no food vouchers or hotel is just as sad.

I haven't flown AA in a year so I don't have any recent VDB experiences, but I VDB'ed last week on United, and for a 1.5 hr delay (that I got rebooked in F, and $600), I didn't even have to ask, I was given a dinner voucher. And for United at least, I always thought the food vouchers was automatic.

I don't think it's too much to expect that AA (and any airline, really) would treat their customers the same for someone with some flexibility that doesn't have a whole lot of options to get where they're going.

Often1

While it is true that if the passengers all ganged up, they could force the VDB offer up. AA would typically go as high as $1,500 on a route such as this, perhaps higher if in a real pickle where a substantial delay is involved,. But, the fact is that a savvy consumer looks out for his own interest and could care less how the other party, e.g. AA, looks at the transaction.

The sole question here is whether $250 was sufficient to cause OP to accept a VDB. It was. If he had spoken with the other volunteer and the two had agree to drive the price up to $1,000, perhaps the other passenger would have jumped at $900 and OP would have nothing. Additionally, as the offer increased, other passengers might have jumped on the amount.

The typical breakage on vouchers is thought to run around 35%. While OP has a specific purpose for this one, on average the $250 voucher costs AA approximately $162. Not much.

But, bottom line is that OP has no bargaining leverage.