hkcj

I'm on an overbooked flight tomorrow that I actually want to cancel. AA is giving me "change for free!" or "volunteer at the gate for comp" options. Do they ever offer compensation online? If not I will at least call and try to get them to refund it to me for free since I'm also helping them out. (Or a non/less-expiring voucher.)

Often1

AA will almost always wait to offer compensation for overbooked flights to determine whether they really are oversold. That, of course, can't occur until just before the boarding cutoff at the gate. Most of the time, changes, no shows & misconnects eliminate the oversell.

The only times that I have seen AA offer comp in advance is when there is a massive issue where it is self-evident that there will be an oversell and there are no great alternatives by the time of the flight.

What you are seeing is common, run by an algorithm and largely not negotiable. Nothing prevents you from calling, but the practical answer is that you really aren't saving AA much. If you look at actual IDB situations where AA has to pay out cash as it must if it refunds your ticket, those are so infintesimal as not to be statistically significant.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

That's happen to me once where compensation was offered proactively online. Presumably as Often1 indicated the oversell is so massive AA fully anticipates the flight being oversold even after accounting for no shows and misconnects. It's very rare. 95% of the time if you volunteer you won't be needed. It just blows me away the number of people that check in for a flight and don't make it to the airport.

BTW I've come to the conclusion that a lot of those what will you bid to volunteer are fishing expeditions by AA to determine how low can they go with bump offers.

Beachfun71

Over the last couple of months I’ve booked all my flights either day-of or day-before travel. I am 5-for-5 where, as soon as I confirm the flight, the app is presenting the offer to change.

Since they’ve started presenting these change offers, I’ve never actually had to change my flight.

Often1

AA, of course, mines the data to determine what it is that would cause someone to accept a rebooking. Makes all the sense in the world. There is no advantage to the passenger in volunteering online for possible VDB at the gate. If you do add yourself, you are not obligated to accept rebooking or the VDB to which you agreed and if you do not volunteer online, you may still volunteer at the gate.

I should add to the list of "no shows" items which are not "no shows" but do result in availability, e.g. SDC and fee-free changes.

hkcj

I wonder if AA is doing what other airlines have been where they'll let you change for free if it's just > 2/3 or so full (vs overbooked) because of COVID.

Fair enough about odds of getting a refund... shouldn't be too hard to use at least some of the FFC by the expiration to get the rest as a voucher anyway. (Those do have a further expiration, right?)

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I'm assuming that if the flight is overbooked AA offers the ability to change to a flight that is less booked but it's not like there's a ton of empty airplanes flying around. My hunch is that AA uses "COVID" as a way to encourage people to take less crowded flights and thus less likelihood that the flight ends up in an oversold situation. I think oversold technically means more people have checked in than seats available but again with no shows and misconnects there still likely won't be the need for VDBs.

Often1

Overbooked means that there are more seats reserved than available for use on the aircraft.

Oversold means that there are more passengers holding confirmed seats and who have met other requirements, e.g. checked in, documents OK, and are at the gate on time, than there are seats available.

For a domestic flight, oversale can't occur before T-15, although they term gets thrown around regularly.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Interesting I had a flight last Friday AM to LGA on a E175. (MIA/LGA on an E175 at one time would have been unthinkable). Woke up Friday AM to check where I was in the upgrade pecking order (number 2 and no one cleared at the gate/onboard) and presented an opportunity to bid on a VDB starting at $525 up to $975. All the other offers I've seen have never been for anything over $400. I'm thinking this flight must be massively overbooked.

Turns out when I made my way back to the lav there were numerous empty seats so either a huge number of no shows (well it is Miami and Spring Break with a 9AM flight so no surprise some couldn't make it out of bed on time) or AA is doing some real data fishing.

fly747first

AA isn't good forecasting groups so perhaps a large group misconnected or missed the flight

JMN57

Restarting this thread. Got an offer for flights tomorrow. Truly, I understand that AA wants to wait until the last minute to decide if they want to offer compensation but they really could get people to move with much more modest offers if they would make them before people packed their bags and made their way to the airport. Just tell me the alternate plan for getting me from point A to point B and give me a reasonable offer and if I can make it work, we're done.

Amil

I think these new free changes is working for them. I have not seen vouchers in a long time. I know this because I usually select the lowest bid and the ga always said the flight will be fine.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I think some of these "offers" are nothing more than data mining for AA to study how little they can buy people off in vouchers. I don't think these flights are even overbooked.

Kevin AA

We should all agree to only make high bids to keep AA from low-balling us on VDB.

enviroian

it was that entire group of thugs who were fighting at the gate