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Comment by schrodinger | Hacker News Reader

I don't see a problem with that (unless the voucher has ridiculous terms) because it allows someone who doesn't mind being bumped to voluntarily accept it rather than going straight to the "you've been chosen, here's the legally mandated payment."

I've made out quite well on United. I had 2 flights back from London to NY where I accepted a 3 hour delay (with lounge access) and made a total over of $2500 in vouchers. The terms were generous too—a year to use them (extended by a year because it was around the pandemic), and you could partially use them, it just added to a "voucher balance" you could draw from.

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>I've made out quite well on United

No, you made out poorly. Wouldn't you prefer to have been paid more?

>The terms were generous too—a year to use them

Are you for real? That's not generous.

Hmm? The flights originally cost around $700 since it was winter season. So I got paid around $1200 per flight to sit in a lounge with free unlimited food and drinks for 3 hours. Of course would prefer more, but $400/hr to relax in a lounge is a job I'd take! Besides, I could have said no…

And it ended up being around 3 or 4 years, but because of the pandemic. I honestly don't remember the original amount, 1 or 2 years. Either way I had no issue using them. I was even able to use them to pay for another traveler as long as I was also on the booking (bought my mother a ticket).

Side note: No need for this dismissive tone, my statements were obviously subjective—one person's generous can easily be another person's disappointing. So you're in violation of two HN guidelines:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

14 CFR 250.5 calls for an airline to compensate you for involuntarily denied boarding for overbooking (your circumstance) to the tune of 400% of the fare (though this is capped at $1,550) per person, so that's a helpful index to understand what benefit there might be holding out.

Airlines _will_ frequently offer voluntary benefits in excess of this amount to maintain good relationships, and gate agents for, say, Delta, can even offer as high as nearly $10k [1], which is kind of crazy: you'd think they'd just fall back on the involuntary limits.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-10000-offer-to-switch-fli....

I was not involuntarily denied boarding, I was voluntarily denied and in fact lucky to get the offer as multiple people wanted it once it hit that level, since it was an early afternoon flight for which a 3 hour delay again with lounge was quite pleasant.

But only to those who are involuntary bumped. So they look for volunteers who will take less than that first. So far when I have traveled the offer hasn't been enough that I have wanted to give up my spot. But the person above's offer sounds like one I would have considered.

>No, you made out poorly. Wouldn't you prefer to have been paid more?

If you don't volunteer, you're much more likely to stay on the flight and not be paid anything.

Exactly!

He probably wouldn't have been paid anything, someone else would have been chosen at random to be bumped off. This way the burden shifts to whoever it's least inconvenient for.

My wife and I were flying from San Juan with a layover in Atlanta going to Nashville. We gladly volunteered to take a flight that next morning for $1000 a piece + food voucher + hotel.

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