Just read about bumping thread of AA and was wondering if the same applies to UA.

If I volunteer when UA offers $100 and then later on, the ante gets moved up to $400, do I get the $100 or $400? In other words, is there any advantage to offering your seat later rather than earlier? Thanks.

In the many times I've witnessed bumping situations, UA never increases its offer with time. The compensation is based on delay until next flight only. Maybe this is because they usually get enough volunteers the first time around. The compensation seems to be *approximately* $100 in vouchers per hour difference in arrival time, with $300 the maximum I've experienced.

Anyone experience otherwise?

I have seen it dramatically higher, and does go up if they get desparate. Yesterday at LHR, I thought (but I may have misheard) that one flight to the US was up to $800.

It does go higher (simple demand and supply) if they cannot find enough volunteers with the first offer. I have only seen this once - they offered $400, the original offer was $300. I was not even aware that they were taking volunteers till they made the second offer, so I took it. The agent at the gate gave me $300 in vouchers, and when I told him that it was $400, he confirmed with the supervisor and then gave me another $100 in vouchers. On the second $100 he wrote by hand that it was ok to combine with the first set (though I have myself not had a problem combining vouchers from two different bumps - even with a discount certificate as well).

BTW this was for a one hour flight. On another 3 hour+ flight I once got $200.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 01-17-2000).]

The most I've seen on domestic flights is $400-- and that was when they were pretty desperate. Once it involved the last flight out of PVD and the volunteers were to be bussed to Boston; another time it involved the last flight to Spokane, and volunteers would have had to spend the night in a hotel (courtesy of UA, of course); the other time was on a Friday night ORD-LAX flight-- they were WAY overbooked and were looking for around 15 volunteers!

Well I just got bumped last week in Chicago.. the delay was going to be 4 hours, so they offered $300.00. I think the original flight is 6pm but the bump flight was 10pm on American. I luckily was connecting, so I bumped to another flight 2 hours later, non-stop, and first class.. got to LAX only 40 min later than scheduled... with $300 in vouchers

But I did remember him saying the hours and the dollar amount were linked....

My two UA bumps last year were for $200 each; the first was a UA commuter flight between SAN-LAX. I was confirmed on the next flight, which was only 30 minutes later; so it was a great deal for $200. The next involved rerouting; I gave up my ORD-SAN seat for $200 and about 20 of us were rerouted ORD-SFO-SAN. They also promised a lunch voucher but by the time they had reticketed 20 people we had to rush over to the other concourse & just barely made the SFO flight. If I had to do it over again, I'd skip the ORD bump as I gave up my nice Premier-zone aisle seat on a 757 for a window seat way at the back of a 777 plus a crappy Shuttle flight that made me check my carry-on bag to get $200..

I was on (one of my last flights) United from PIT-JFK the day before Thanksgiving three years ago. The compensation offered was nearly $1000, plus hotel room, plus breakfast, plus dinner at a four star restaurant, plus seats on the first flight the next morning.

I almost took it, but glad I didn't since the $1000 was in UA vouchers.

So, does anybody know whether you get compensated at the final offer if you volunteered during their earlier, but lower offer?

DG1 - you should have taken it. You could get a lot swapping a $1000 United voucher.

Those United vouchers are a b***h to convert to someone else. I once traded another airline's voucher for a UA voucher and demanded mine back after reading the restrictions:

For one, the person who originally received the voucher must be physically present at the time that the voucher is converted to a ticket. That pretty much makes its transferability worthless to anyone outside your immediate family...

I once got $500 up front on a flight on Continental on the last day of spring break 1999 before school started. That was a great day, as it paid for a trip to Cancun and then some.

As far as I know, the restrictions on transferring to another person are just like with award tickets: the person to whom the voucher was issued must be present when it is redeemed, but the person for whom it is being redeemed doesn't. So I could ticket for someone else using my voucher, e-ticket it, and be done with it. Just call them up and tell them the itinerary later...

Does the offer increase with time? I have witnessed something similar. On a flight from SEA-SFO, I was offered $100 to take a confirmed seat on the next flight, or $300 to take a confirmed seat on the last flight of the day (about 4 hours from departure time). I could have "waitlisted" for all earlier flights had I taken the $300 option. I took the $100 option, because I didn't want to sit in the airport all night. However, another person (non premier) took the $300 option, and ended up on the next flight (with me), with $200 more.

I have never seen any increase in dollar amounts offered besides this. I know that they do give more for International Flights (LHR-SFO is a big one) -- like $500-$600.

Give this a look http://www.onetravel.com/rules/Rules1.cfm?refer=1travel