Not impressed with AA’s bid process
 

On AA5875 from PHL-YUL tonight. They’ve been begging me to change my flight for the last week. Today, I get asked to bid. I offer the highest, $975.

The agents show up late to the gate (SOP, used to that) and announce they’re looking for volunteers. They don’t seem particularly enthused about selling the opportunity. Nothing is said to me and I’m not called to the desk, so I board the flight.

Right as the door closes, the GA pokes her head in and says she needs to talk to me. Funnily enough, she must have realized how this looked and quickly added “you’re not in trouble!”.

So now they have to grab my gate checked bag and then process my voucher. We’ve now been working on that last step for 15 minutes and they’re struggling mightily to get me rebooked on the promised flight.

I am frankly happy to do this when I have the time just to help out a fellow traveler but I would really appreciate if they didn’t push this to the very last minute. I’m positive they lose plenty of willing volunteers by doing this nonsense; for me, it took a 100% certain decision down to a coin toss.

EDIT: We are so hosed when the last AA old heads leave. It took them well over ten minutes just to confirm my place on tomorrow’s flight and they still hadn’t closed the flight as I left. Not exactly confidence building.

This reminds me of a flight from LGA I took this summer, the most bizarre handling of a potential oversell I've seen. Maybe this is AA's new strategy?
They did everything they could to increase the chance someone would inadvertently miss their flight. I have mixed feelings...I don't pity people who forget their departure time, but it left me with an icky feeling from AA.

Here is how it went down.
I received multiple text messages that my bid was being "considered" and to go to the gate. I usually aim to be the last person to board so I saw the entire mess of a process .

GA: Passenger [me] please check-in at the gate (about T-20).
Manager: Dont page anyone! No announcements!
GA: But this was a volunteer.
Manager: Doesn't matter! No paging!

There was NO GA "final boarding" message. Maybe an automated airport one, I am not sure.

FWIW - no volunteer was needed and I think they even cleared standbys. The most customer unfriendly approach I've seen but I guess at least it's a strategy? Maybe the same thing happened to your flight except AA wasn't as lucky.

I am not sure what the issue is, Any volunteer is going to only be accepted once it is confirmed that ihe seat will be needed, so why would it be expected to be anything other than lat minute

If there are people able to be removed at no cost, then of course the airline should do that before paying

Your are making a lot of assumptions. If they cleared standbys that means that they had empty seats. There is no reason to assume that they were trying to get people to miss their flight. It's quite the conspiracy theory though.

I know I should just ignore this bait, as you seem to refuse to engage other forum members in good faith. However, I will reiterate the issues I had with this process as individual bullet points.

• The AA app assures you that you will have your name called at the gate if the process is going to be used. This did not happen and could give individuals the notion their offer will not be required. Given the small size of the RJ145, I would prefer that I not have to board simply to have to immediately unfurl myself out of the seat minutes later.
• The flight was fully boarded well before the cutoff time to close the plane door. We likely had been all seated for at least 5 minutes before she popped her head in.
• In fact, the individual who I gave my seat up to was at the gate before me. The only reason that the seat swap occurred at the last minute is because the GA (knowingly or unknowingly) engineered it that way.
• The process to assign my AA credit and rebook me was much longer than it should have been.
• Not mentioned in OP but after I posted I realized they actually managed to rebook me on the wrong flight tomorrow, which I’ve now had to waste an additional hour chasing to fix (and which is still not yet resolved).
• Imagine if I had a checked bag? Goodbye D-0!
• Not that it bothered me personally but the actual interaction with the GA could have been upsetting to some customers. Her immediate utterance of “you’re not in trouble!” belied her own embarrassment and recognition of her poor approach.

I am not even considering contacting AA about this. I simply wanted to vent as AA has changed this process substantially - in particular the tight in-app integration. As I had a poor experience compared to prior situations (on AA and other carriers), I simply wanted to share my thoughts as well as hear others’ experiences with this system.

I hope this clarification finally enables me to clear your threshold of complaint worthiness.

With limited overhead storage space in the small aircraft type u said it was, I would think many people would prefer to be on the plane and be sure they didn't have to check their carry-on bag, versus boarding last to avoid having to disembark if needed as a vol. I realize that's not your preference but definitely would be my preference to do it the way she timed it

Sounds like she was trying to make light of needing you to volunteer after all. Had you spoken with the gate agent at all before boarding to see how likely you'd be needed as a volunteer? One can always turn down being a volunteer even though one's clicked in the app for a specific dollar amount bid. That stinks about them messing up your flight. Was it a location where you were volunteering where there was an admirals club? cuz I certainly would have just taken care of it there if it was going to take so long to fix it.

No - GA were late and I was brushed off when I asked about the overbooking situation.