Miles Instead of a Voucher?
 

If you are offered a voucher when you get bumped, do you think an airline would be willing to give you miles instead of the voucher? I assume you could just use the voucher to buy the miles from the airline like AA does on their website, but why not just ask the GA for miles instead. Anyway, just exercising my creativity this afternoon. Any input appreciated. Thanks everyone.

i have wondered the same
 

the difference may be this

the vouchers are issued with a expiration date for a year. i am sure that some fraction of those vouchers are never redeemed, and hence your giving up a seat doesnt cost the airlines anything

if they were to give ff miles, that liabilty may extend indefinitley, and the airline unwittingly gives you access to a better seat, ie, they give you 25k for bump then you add 25k of your own miles for a 50k reward to europe

Voucher exchange
 

I've only been successful a couple of times swapping a US Round Trip Flight Credit for a $200 voucher on US. I find the RTFC limiting, while the $ voucher could be used for overseas travel, fc, seats to upgrade, etc. I don't know of any other swapping that can legally be done. I recall a tip to extend the expiration, albeit with loss of value is to buy the cheapest ticket ($78?) anywhere and your new voucher with the remainder value would have another year. Ask before you try. Another is to buy a shot in the dark ticket as far in advance as possible. If you don't end up using it, up to the travel date, you can apply the ticket value less $100 toward another ticket. It used to be if your AA ticket competed with JetBlue, the JetBlue exchange fee of $25 was honored by American. This was a while back...I don't know if this still works. IMHO, I don't know of any airline that will give miles instead, but if it is not likely you will use the voucher, you may also want to look at the trade value, since these are usually transferrable or even the sale value, usually half to 3/4 of the voucher value depending on expiration. Note that when you signed for the voucher, you probably acknowledged you wouldn't sell or barter it.

Outoftown