Overbooking a flight is common among many airlines as this ensures aircraft are full even if travellers don’t show up or cancel their tickets last minute. So, when all passengers show up, airlines often offer flight credits to tempt passengers to take a later flight.
In some instances, airlines have offered thousands of dollars of credit. In 2022, Delta paid one woman $4800 to take a later flight.
However, Bode confirmed that in this case, it was cold hard cash on offer.
“It’s an Amex gift card or direct upload to Apple wallet,” she wrote.
As a result, multiple people raced to the front of the plane to claim the offer.
“So many people ran they didn’t have any left to redeem and turned people away.”
In a Tweet, Bode said Delta needed 40 volunteers to leave the plane due to the “heat index.
“Delta just offered $1600 PER PERSON to get off of the flight from Vegas to Atlanta because of the heat index,” she wrote. …. has anyone ever heard of getting this much $$$ to switch flights?
In a tweet, Bode explained that Delta needed to remove people due to the “heat index”.
When the temperature outside is too high and the air is too thin, a flight can become ‘too heavy’ to take off.
As a result, the aircraft needed to offload passengers in order to take off.
On TikTok, many people commented on the video to say they would have certainly taken the money.
“I would’ve got off too, that’s another vacation,” one person wrote. another comment.
“We did this! Got $1200 for me and $1200 for my husband + hotel for the night and a flight in the AM,” another recalled.
One traveller said even more had been offered on their last flight.
“They offered 4,000 on my last flight lol,” they said.
In response, Delta said offering money was a win-win for passengers and employees.
“The ability to provide compensation for volunteers to take later flights when a flight is full empowers our employees’ efforts to care for customers and to ensure on-time departures,” it said in a statement.
