The seat wasn't given away though.

Going way back to the original posting quoted above, it is not really clear who exactly said what. Did the GA mention the 600 Euro amount, or did you mention it and she merely "confirmed the normal process" to you? Of course, we now all know that this "normal process" only applies for a delay of 4 hours or more, and a different process applies for delays of less than 4 hours.

You did mention that you have a copy of the EU regulations. Did you have it prior to this incident, or was it supplied to you by KLM on Sunday? If so, did the GA give it to you prior to your decision to give up your seats? Or was it supplied sometime later in the whole VDB and rebooking process?

The other piece, which was stated before in the EU regulations, is that the compensation for a VDB is negotiated between the passenger and the airline.

Your card in that negotiation is to say "we want our original seats back." If she chooses to not go through the hassle of finding additional volunteers, you may have some negotiating power.

She also said the normal process was to provide, meals, hotel, and transportation to and from the hotel. By your logic, you should also have received those as vouchers for future use, even though they were not required, since she confirmed it was part of the "normal process." When you write to NWA, make sure to include those items for additional compensation.

The GA mentioned it and I confirmed the amount by asking her about the amount as well as overnight accomodation. She does not deny having said that, but after about 30-45 minutes of waiting, she lowered the amount claiming that she had never "promised" and citing that she had found a flight that got us to DCA about the same time. It's a semantics game she was playing.

I did not have a copy of EU rules. Neither did the GA. The EU rules were shown to me about an hour after the flight had departed.

You are right, this is Europe, but the flip side is I was on US airline and am a US citizen. If any US agency has any rules then US rules may apply if they entitle me to a higher compensation than than EU rules. The reasoning is similar to the baggage rules.

Thank you. A very good post. That was the intent of my post to draw on actual experience(s) of FTers in getting a bump in and oversold situation in AMS. I had asked explicitly in very first post if some one else had been screwed by KLM in a similar manner. Instead this turned into speculations and conjectures, some of them based on partial information, and some on personal grievances that if they did not get a similar amount for a far longer delay/inconvenience than Yaatri, then why isn't Yaatri happy with 300 Euro. That isn't the point here. I welcome the discussion and opinions by all, but they should be based on merits and facts, not on conjectures or personal grievances.

Please cite which US rule would apply.
I am not aware of any US rules that would guarantee you anything close to what you received- $445 per person for a 45 minute delay.

Many people have offered merits and facts, but you are stuck on the belief that you were screwed. the facts are you could have denied the offer and been boarded on the original flight. You were in control of whether or not you got screwed.

I did get vouchers for lunch as at first, we were told the new flight left at 2:00 P.M.. Later on we found it left at 1:30. So we did get snack vouchers. Anything else?

Now may I recommend that you don't think too hard about this looking for ways trying to justify why KLM did no wrong. You will get an ulcer.

Many people have agreed with me too. What is it to you whther I get 300 Euros or 600 Euros? You have expresses your opinion, whether logical or not, move on to other threads. Why are you hung up on this one? Are you worried that I might get more money?

I guess I'm not sure why you haven't moved on to other threads yet...obviously nothing can be solved here, and it's clearly a KLM issue, not NW. You should consider taking it to their forum.

What a silly statement. I can ask you the same question too. Why are you coming back here?
It's another poster complaining about my posts and now ask me move on! :rolleyes:

Sorry I can;t call this a great post. ;)

It's Allright
 

I don't think there's anything "wrong" with trying to get what you can out of these situations. I just think the original poster made their experience more miserable than they had to by "holding out". I would have rather gone home in FC and called it all good. In these situations, there is no "official bill of rites" that I am aware of that would guarentee someone 600 vs. 300 Euros for a flight delay of less than an hour. If there is, please educate me. :cool:

-Alan

It seems some people get so stuck in their opinions, the most important thing to them is they stand their ground and defend to their death if necessary (ok, maybe not that far, but...), that original opinion and never stop for a second to step back and to to look at all sides and consider reassessing what's happen. "I'm right!! I'm right!! I'm right..!! don't nobody tell me I'm wrong because I'm right!!" Sad.

This is NOT bait-and-switch. For it to be bait-and-switch, there's a requirement of willful and intentional mispresentation by the party providing the goods or services. That's NOT what happened here.

As I (and I believe the majority) see it, GA made an offer of 600 EU with the assumption the OP would be delayed overnight. I am certain the GA did not think "we need volunteers to bump, I'm going to offer 600 EU, but later rescind that and only offer 300 EU". That would be bait-and-switch.

There was much chaos and such getting the plane boarded and on its way, for the GA to be fully aware of all the various bump options is going beyond reasonable expectations. As it turns out, a flight was available to put the bumpees on and incur only a 45-min delay, IMHO, 300 EU is quite a good deal in this case.

If some kind of written agreement had been handed out and signed off on, this would be a different matter. It's why I think things like mistake fares need to be honored-- a<mistake> amount is advertised, money is exchanged, an agreement is made in writing <albeit electronically>. But there's a purely human factor here-- a GA who's difficult job is to get that plane off. Like many here have already pointed out, agreeing to a VDB means giving up some things, including boarding at a time where there's enough overhead luggage space. In the end, it wasn't necessary to stay overnight and put up with the hassles of returning a day later.

In the words of Howie Mandel, the OP got, "a good deal".

Check out the IATA report on the progress of the ET project here: http://www.iata.org/stbsupportportal/StB_library.htm

We are still a bit far away from achieving the target of universal Etix.