A few years ago, I was flying CO EWR/PIT on a Christmas weekend (on a Friday). They were offering $200 and a new flight on Tuesday! I told the GA that I was interested in volunteering, but not at that rate. He said - That's ok. I'll just put your name on the list, but if I can't get enough volunteers and I have to raise the $$$ amount, everybody get the highest amount! I ended up with $650 and home late the same night - - -

CO EWR/ABE (bus service with a flight number)
NW ABE/DTW/PIT

They had a few volunteers and still had to IDB a few. Everybody got $650.

I agree that the GA's can go up and beyond whatever the computer is programmed for, but often do not have to do it as inexperienced travellers go for lowball offers.

Recently volunteered on a Delta-operated award flight that I had booked on nwa.com (012 ticket stock)...when the tickets were reissued, they had the Y ticket designator (which excited me for the surefire upgrade and extra miles), but under my name it said NO UPG/NO MILES.

Typically, Ive always found that miles/upgrades are based on the fare class code. But, no upgrade was processed (with 11 out of 12 seats going to nonrevs) and no miles posted. Is this small benefit of volunteering one's seat gone now that the nwa.com backend is running the system?

Not necessarily. Keep an eye on your mileage balance. ;)

Same happend to me last week.

I had a similar situation. When I got to the gate I asked if they needed volunteers and they said they already had all they needed. I boarded and took my seat in F. Entire plane was full. Unfortunately two passengers (husband and wife) both had the same seat assignment. A FA went to the GA and came back saying one was supposed to be in seat xx, which unfortunately was also already occupied. The GA finally came on with a printout. He looked for a while then turned to me and asked, "Do you still want to volunteer?" So off I went and got my $300 voucher.

Wow, I will be sure to be careful when I volunteer that I ask about this. No miles just because you volunteered? Now that is not right. I guess it can't hurt to take the extra few seconds to add "I will receive my miles for this flight and still be eligible for an upgrade, correct? when I ask, "What is the compensation for being bumped?"

John

Yep...it usually happens when the GA takes the seat(s) away from customer(s) that look like a sure misconnect. But, the aircraft makes it in time for the customer to get to the gate. If using a gate scanner it should give an audible indication that that seat number is already onboard. If the GA is in a hurry or the scanner is down...sometimes you get more than one person assigned to the same seat. Delta's computers are programmed for either 400 or 600 Delta Dollars.

He stated award ticket.

Sorry - I missed that part. Read too fast. Still don't like the "no upgrade" part - hopefully that will go away once the upgrades on award tickets are implemented again sometime in 2010.

I gather that only vouchers are offered in the US by DL, but do they offer vouchers or cash in Europe?

Very odd thing happened to me yesterday on a NW flight...volunteers were needed for an overnight stay in DTW to go on the first flight in the morning. Max compensation offered was $300 and a hotel. I thought it was either 400 or 600? And they had to come on board to beg for volunteers so it wasnt like they had too many to raise it to the minimum. Or are NW computers different?

$300 for an overnight stay is crap. No wonder they had no/few takers. I got $600 10 days ago for arrival 3 hours later. VDBed from a DL flight to NW flight.

NW and DL still have different VDB comp until the airline becomes one.

NW always did an UG for an award VDB for GE/PE. As matter of fact, they always book into F (fare flown, not necessarily paid). They just booked into F. Seems like DL may be doing differently?

Had a Delta GA not offer me the full $400 the other day, and as I was in a hurry to make my new flight, I couldn't argue past the point of just questioning whether or not it was $400.

Emailed Delta the other day and got a rather poor answer in which the agent talked about IDB, not VDB in her response. Any specific place I can quote as VDB=$400 for my response to the reply letting them know that they are off course?

Edit: This is for a DL-coded, DL-metal flight. Nothing NW involved.

Can I get a replacement voucher?
 

I think I know the answer to this question but I'm hoping I'm wrong: I received a $200 Delta voucher for a VDB in Nov. 2009. I put it away for safekeeping knowing that I had a year to use it, but now I can't seem to find it (not sure if it's lost or stolen).

In any case, is the voucher in Delta's system under my name so that they can either re-issue it or cancel it and provide me with another one (with the same expiration date)? It's not the end of the world if I've lost it but I would like to be able to use it considering the fares keep going up. Thanks for your help.

You may be able to pull it up by your SM # here:

https://www.delta.com/edocviewer/red...erts/index.jsp

Yeah if the voucher had your SKymiles # attached to it, it'll show up under your profile online.

Just as a suggestion for the future, scan in all vouchers, and email it to yourself. its a good backup for situations such as that which you find yourself in.

Thanks....I was just thinking that and then I found it! I appreciate the help. Does anyone know what the difference is between an E-Cert and an E-Credit? I'm assuming that the E-Credit is what's issued when I've cancelled flights within and gotten a refund to my credit card but it's curious to see it showing up in my profile as being "open". It says to call the reservations line to use the credit amount but is this a valid credit that I can use?

Bump Compensation for Overnight/Next Day is What Nowadays?
 

I may have a bump opp. tonight and it is the last flight out and would mean an overnight and traveling out the next morning. DL used to offer higher VDB amounts for this - DL once offered $750 for a 300 mile flight (couldn't take due to business schedule). What is DL offering now in this situation?

Last one I saw was $400

was offered $400 for a bump in MEM two weeks ago. $300 for a bump in DTW last week. Negotiate for $400. Of course, I didn't get a bump on either flight, and ended up giving up 25% of my seat to the person next to me on BOTH flights :/

also was offered food credit for MEM since it would have kept me there thru lunch. depending on the time, you should also receive that and you will more than likely have to negotiate how much they give you for lodging, as well.

It all depends on how many seats are needed and how many people take the offer.

Expect $400 DL dollars but they won't go above $600 DL dollars for a domestic flight (a red coat must do $600).

Somewhere I read that the general guidelines (not rules - they may be excepted) are:

1-2 hours: $200
2-3 hours: $300
3-4 hours: $400
4+ hours or special circumstances: $600 (theoretical max, and as noted above in this thread, must be approved by a higher-up)

Not sure if it's accurate, but it is what I use as my guideline when negotiating. Of course, as also noted earlier, the more desperate they are to bump people the better position you are in to negotiate up the ladder.

In partial reference to the OP, is this amount also intended to cover costs if an overnight stay is required as a result of volunteering? Or in that case, would one also be able to negotiate a separate hotel voucher+meal vouchers on top of that?

There were some posters recently who reported $200 for overnight out of JFK.

On a related note, is it still SOP to book medallions into F/J if they volunteer?

Generally, it's DL dollars + hotel voucher + meal vouchers, but I always make sure to ask.

An overnight stay will have DL dollars and meals/lodging vouchers.

Awesome! Thank you for your reply. I've never volunteered for a later flight, but I might get the chance to try on a very full flight that I'm on this weekend out of DTW.

Is it typical for the F passengers to be offered more compensation? My father was flying SLC-PHL earlier this year in paid F (flight was very full due to many cancellations out of SLC to the NE that day), and he was offered $600 to take a flight the next morning.

Not always
 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding this particular post, but I have not found this to be the case in all situations.

I got bumped from a PDX-DTW flight last month to a PDX-MSP flight the next morning and was not given a hotel voucher. The GA told me that hotels must be separately negotiated; in my case it turned out not to be a big deal, since the PDX-MSP flight was so early that it wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense to waste the time going to a hotel, so I didn't pursue it.

I had a GA make an annoucement when she was asking for voluntears at LAX it was the red eye back to JFK and she was offering 400 and she specifically said if you live in the LA area no hotel voucher would be offered.

And if it doesn't...Don't accept it. Should be $600 DLD, meals/lodging vouchers or find someone else.

Exactly. I don't know what GA would offer such and not do meals and hotel. If you take it w/o then shame on you.

Compensation
 

It has been policy if you are bumped from your initial destination leg of a flight you are not given a voucher. You should be offered one for any delays returning from your original destination. The problem with a red eye bump is that if you are on the initial flight out, you may not get much sleep due to the time to return home or even reach an airport hotel. Remember, you can always negotiate to a later departing flight or refuse the bump.

This is false buddy!

My experiences YTD:

March 2010
LAX-ATL [10:55PM flight]: $400, hotel voucher at LAX Crowne Plaza hotel, 2 meal vouchers covering dinner and breakfast, and rebooked into F.

April 2010
ATL-SLC [12:10PM flight IIRC]- $400, one meal voucher covering lunch, plus rebook on a later flight (4 hours or so). Ended up GA did not need my seat due to several misconnects.

May 2010
JFK-LAX [9:30PM flight]- $200, hotel voucher, and meal vouchers covering dinner and breakfast, rebooked on the next flight in the middle seat.

For JFK-LAX if they offer $200 and requires overnight stay, ditch it or negotiate for more compensation... $200 is not worth it, too much headache, unless you live near the airport. The GA wanted to limit my options to flights that only had the same fare class or lower which would have limited my options to only 2 flights, the 7AM flight or 9:30PM flight. I went like "mhmm, are you kidding me?" and I elected to deal with the other GA who rebooked me into Y, so I could pick whatever flight I wanted.

Bottom line, if the flight is longer than 3.5 hours and requires overnight stay, fight for $400 period. Do not be suckered into a measly $200 compensation like me. Learned my lesson the hard way. If they refuse to increase my compensation, I would stand in front of the line and board at the very last minute and get IDBed, where the compensation is two times more.

In March my son and I gave up our seats at IAH on an overbooked flight to ATL. We each received $400 vouchers. We live in Houston, and the gate agent still gave us a hotel voucher because I was concerned about the otherwise long rush-hour drive back to the airport. The agent was very happy to have us as volunteers -- he said every flight out had been overbooked for days on end during spring break -- and the hotel voucher was no problem. When volunteering, I'd be sure to say a hotel voucher is important, and you just might get it even if you're in your home city.

personal preference
 

I've never not been able to get a hotel voucher when I needed one (I agree with other comments to the effect that if I'm getting bumped in my home city a hotel is a convenience, not a necessity), so I don't know what I would do if that happened.

However, I have been offered less than I wanted. These days I am happy with $400 or more, not annoyed with $300, and bummed out when only offered $200. However I would be more bummed out if they bumped someone else for $200 because I said no.

And since recently for the flights I'm on the vast majority of the time the GA gets more volunteers than he/she needs regardless of what is offered I volunteer when it's only $200. Call me cheap.

My recent experience (14-May):

$400, one night in the Holiday Inn Suites, three meal vouchers, and re-booked in full Y (CR2) to take flight of my choice next morning. Flight was so oversold the GA processed me as soon as I went to the counter - had dinner and was in my hotel room before the plane pushed. If I had waited, I might have been able to get $600 but I was also willing to take $400 in hand and run ;)