£1000 to fly home 24 hours before

[TINAPETERS]

Dilema??
My family and I have been offered £250 per person to fly home one day earlier than planned. We are going for 3 weeks.
Would you accept this offer?
Apparently you are issued with a voucher at Tampa airport on your return flight home which you exchange for cash when you arrive back in London.
Has anyone done this sort of thing before?

[Katys Grandad]

Do you know if this is an offer to everybody on the flight?

[Ray&Sarah]

We were offered US$800 per person to stand down from our return flight from Orlando in October. They were then offering a flight 2 hours later. Can't think why we didn't take it actually ti would have padi for us all to go again.[msnscared]

[TINAPETERS]

They have overbooked the flight home so need to off load passengers from the flight, they are ringing around at the moment (British Airways)

[luckylady]

I have just put a posting on Highrove B.A have just done the same to my son and his family offersd him £250 per person to go a day later he and his family are coming to Highgrove to join us on the 29th Dec for 10 days he turned it down flat
I think he is nut's thats about £750 for 3 of them that's $1400 could have a good shop with that
Barbara
just another thought with a few more pounds you could have the air fare to go again at a quieter time

[TINAPETERS]

Wow, $800 for two hours, I would do that and hit the duty free[msnsmile2]

[Snapper]

Check the small print carefully, especially around whether the voucher really is exchanged for cash and not some airline type currency. If you are happy with the terms and conditions and don't mind losing the day why not got for it - it almost pays for your next set of flights back out here.

[Katys Grandad]

I have come across people being 'bumped' to later flights. In fact a lot of savvy US travellers arrive at the airport at the last possible moment to see if they might be 'bumped' to receive compensation. It is common for airlines to offer a variety of options such as upgrades but I think they must offer up to $200 per person. As your flight is taking off in the USA their regualtions apply even though it is BA.

I'm afraid I'm not as clear where the change is to an EARLIER flight but I think it would be worth seeing how far BA will go (assuming that you are considering this option).

[SunLover]

We volunteered to be bumped once with Virgin to a flight a couple of hours earlier than our scheduled departure, and accepted as they were offering 2 round trip tickets to anywhere that Virgin flies as compensation.

We also asked for phone cards to call home to rearrange taxis, which they gave us, and then just to push our luck we asked for upgrades on our replacement flight, and were immediately given seats in first class.

[linda allen]

Most if not all airlines overbook. The destination of the flight determines just how much they will oversell. On some routes the percentage "no show" rate is greater than on others. For instance travelers travelling on a fully flexible ticket may change their travel plans whereas others on a apex fare have restrictions on their ticket and cannot change usually without incuring a charge.
Mostly the over booking is done to ensure that the flight will leave full.( I have got on a Miami flight with a standby ticket when they had oversold by 99 seats.) Very occasionally more passengers than forecast turn up, or an aircraft change to one with fewer seats occurs. When this happens the airline offer incentives for passengers not to travel on their booked flight. If accepted the customer is transfered free of charge to another flight and duly compensated. £250 sounds reasonable to me. You could also ask for an upgrade which you may get if space is available.
About 3 years ago my mum and dad were booked to fly from Manchester to New York. Whilst waiting to check in they were approached by a BA employee and asked if they would travel via LHR, if they accepted they would be given £200 each. They accepted and were also upgraded to Club world on their flight.