VDB a week before flight?
 

Hello

I read FT regularly but don't post much. First off, thanks for all the info you folks provide. I've learned a ton from this site.

Anyway, I got a call from Delta today offering a VDB on a flight I have next week. I thought it was odd so I said I'd call back...it was legit. Got 200 delta dollars to change to a flight that is similar to my original.

I've been flying delta weekly for years and never been called before...is this common?

Thanks for your time.
-Rocket

It's not common, but there are occasions when a carrier knows, as the result of some future event, that it's going to have a serious problem which won't be solved by no shows. So, they handle upfront. Costs them a ton less and nobody is really put out.

It's rare. I've heard of people getting a phone call offering them a nonstop or otherwise better flights in advance but no VDB compensation for helping.

Also, sometimes airlines (KLM in my case) call and ask whether you really plan to take the flight.

Could be a major downsize....

It's been going on at Delta at least since the time of the merger, and a friend of mine also received a similar call from Northwest about five years ago; this isn't new. In 2010, I received a call ~3 days prior to departure for a nonstop flight that had been downgraded from a domestic 767 to a 757; they offered me $400 to switch routings, and I accepted.

I also got a call last year before departing on a funky routing to Germany, as they downgauged a MD88 to a A319 (obviously a much less severe loss of seats. a "major downsize" as OHDL1 mentioned above). They didn't offer anything, so I declined the offer. The phone rep said that I was targeted due to an "inefficient routing," and mentioned that they normally target these passengers to switch itineraries as they tend to take more direct routings in lieu of compensation; it seemed that if the decrease in capacity was small enough, they could usually bait people away from the oversold segment by offering better routings. The flight went out without any DBs at the gate, so something worked for them.

Interesting. Mileage runs must also trip the inefficiency detector. If they also offered ORC, even if it was a MR, there's no downside.

All points to a better software solution at DL. Somebody has designed a means of pulling up the "inefficient routings" and has figured out that those people will more likely accept the more efficient routing.

All of this reduces the cost to DL of overbooking which is the cost of IDB/VDB.

What Delta SHOULD do is call me and ask if it is a MR. If yes, then offer me the miles and the MQMs and don't make me fly the route at all!^

**Edit added** Of course only in this oversold situation. They wouldn't let me buy MQMs as cheap as accrued via a cheap ticket i.e. picked up a SBN - DTW -JFK -SAN -ATL - DTW - SBN = 6400+ for around $0.038/cpm