Voluntary Downgrade, with Compensation
 

I flew a SFO-EWR flight on CO today. Prior to the flight, an announcement was made in the gate area that one of the seats in FC was broken and they were looking for a volunteer to downgrade to coach. I was the only one in the FC cabin who was interested in the offer, which was for a $300 travel certificate and two space positive confirmed upgrades. (For those familiar with CO fare basis codes, they are valid for "F" seats.) They also tossed in 4 "Continental Currency" coupons for drinks and movies.

I thought it was a pretty good offer. I've never heard of compensation being offered for a downgrade before, although I was once called the day before and offered compensation to switch to a later flight (but that didn't involve a downgrade). I have flown on several UA flights (all ORD-SFO) where I was involuntarily downgraded due to an equipment change and given a "downgrade kit," which allowed me to upgrade a later flight. Those experiences always left me with a bad taste.

Does anyone else have experiences with downgrading? I don't think I've read too much about that topic here.

I haven't flown a transcon in coach for a really long time. The service was actually pretty decent. The crew was very friendly. To my surprise, they handed out hot, wet towels before the meal, which was beef lasagna or pork teriyaki, and not terrible. I enjoyed the movie (My Dog Skip - OK, OK, I like hokey dog stories and yes, I cried at the end). I gave the FA one of the COntinental Currency coupons for my headset, and about three hours into the flight, another FA came over and insisted on giving me "my $4 back" even though I told her I hadn't paid for the headset but had used a coupon.

But the highlight of the flight was when I left the plane and saw Catman's smiling face waiting for me at my gate! He came by EWR to hang out with me for my two hour layover. Sweet! We enjoyed a couple of Nathan's hot dogs (one of my favorite places at EWR) and then I took him up to the President's Club (for his Sam Adams). What a nice way to spend a layover.

If I flew as much as you do, I wouldn't mind a downgrade like that. But not flying much lately, I wouldn't volunteer for a downgrade, not even for a $300 travel certificate.

Maybe knowing that Catman would be at EWR to meet you--the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak--made you not feel so bad sitting in the back.

[This message has been edited by Nanook (edited 06-05-2000).]

I was once (10 years ago?) on AA getting ready to sit in my F (upgrade) seat. Some VIP's were on the flight and AA wanted to upgrade them. I think I was offered $350. I thought to myself "How will I explain to my wife that I turned down $350 for a downgrade where the upgrade only cost me $50?" So I agreed to the downgrade.

A similar situation happened to me on Alaska Airlines back in March. The flight attendents chair was broken so they required her to sit in a first class aisle seat for take off and landing.I overheard the problem and by offering to give up my seat they gave me a first class roundtrip ticket 50 states. Not bad.

[This message has been edited by Sydneyjb (edited 06-06-2000).]

I came close to accepting the same type of compensation (it was $300), but one person in first didn't show, so the seat was able to remain empty without moving anyone. Unless it was a 5 hour flight or more, I'd volunteer again without hesitation if I was flying on an upgrade (in my case, it would be my segment upgrade on DL). I fly 70% on my own money and $300 can pay for almost an entire upgradeable roundtrip on certain itinieraries for me.

I was recently on an international flight where they were offering $1,000 in flight credit to go from C to Y.

We were traveling from TUS to Rome last year on Continental BizFirst reward tickets when when a change of aircraft resulted in 20 fewer F/C seats on the IAH-EWR segment.(Domestic DC-10 instead of International DC-10) At the gate we were offered $100 or a future upgrade since "We hadn't paid anything for our tickets" I declined the offer, and called customer service after we arrived at EWR and negotiated for 20,000 miles each to be deposited in my OnePass account.

As a member of the grumpy group of 20, we got little sympathy from the rest of the coach cabin. It was announced that earphones would for the movie were complementary, and drinks were served without charge,(this fact was not made public) depriving me the opportunity to refuse to pay! I was told that 15 of the 20 were CO Platinums.

Gee, I wish UA would offer compensation when I get downgraded...but since the two instances so far were ones where I hadn't yet given them the upgrade certificates, I suppose the certificate for a future upgrade was reasonable profit for me.

Sidneyjb, I would have taken your offer, too (as well as those of the other posters), but in your case I might have negotiated "Can I sit up front other than take-off and landing?! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif" I'm pretty sure the answer would be no - they'd need a place for the FA to sit in case of turbulance during the flight, too.

I thought of that too but i didn't want to push it.

I did it twice:

Last year on a very overbooked United flight to DEN: $300, a confirmable upgrade and a meal voucher.

And about 3 years ago on a London flight on United: $500 bucks, THREE UPgrades and four alcohol coupons.

I used two of the alcohol coupons in first row in coach (they stored my bags in the F-A closet becuase coach was packed) and went to sleep.

If you can do it, it's worth it. Nice move Dgolds.

I had a similar experience earlier this year on almost the same flight (SFO to Newark) on CO. I am platinum on CO and so I got the only upgrade. The plane was late taking off and even though they closed the door, after about 20 minutes, they opened it to let on the first class passenger who had finally showed up. They asked me to step off the plane and told me that he had shown up and that I would have to give up my seat. They offered me one upgrade for the future which if you are familiar with them, they are pretty useless because Continental does not release seats to F until pretty late and then you can use your elite status to upgrade anyway. I negotiated a $200 flight credit, one of the upgrades, and free drinks and headsets for me and my friend during that flight. I was not too unhappy because my friend had not gotten an upgrade and we had some things we had to do during the flight anyway.