A reader over at Marginal Revolution spotted Delta s new system where when you check in at the kiosk

A reader over at Marginal saint martin airport car rental Revolution spotted Delta s new system where when you check in at the kiosk it asks you to bid on what it would cost to get you to volunteer your seat. Below the entry box it says, Delta accepts lower bids first. Genius!
With this method the airline doesn t have to guess what might be the lowest bid passengers might accept and then try to auction saint martin airport car rental it off. Let the travelers underbid each other and do the hard work for you.
Not only does it give Delta more information, it takes information away from flyers. They won t be able to gauge the supply, and their individual value as a participant, as well because there s likely to be that scene where they call out the bump seat offer over the intercom and everyone looks around to see if anyone is going to take it.
One would hope that the airline would pass on the savings from the increased efficiencies to the passengers in the form of cheaper fares. More likely is that it will be used to squeeze in more overbooking.
It is genius on their part, I ll admit. saint martin airport car rental But I m not sure I would change much. I would enter a number saint martin airport car rental that is right for me. If someone underbids me, they can get bumped. I m sure there will be some the Price is Right moments, where someone underbids a person by $1, but I just don t get too worked up over that stuff. The worst case is that I fly when I m supposed to.
Why would anyone volunteer to fly tomorrow for $1? I m fine missing saint martin airport car rental a flight, but only if it s worth my time. If they want to pay me a few hundred dollars to miss my flight, fine. If someone else wants to miss theirs for $50, more power to them. They get paid a pittance and I get to go where I paid to in the first place.
and your new flight would be for 6 hours later or something on the same day you d be stuck in the airport (because you already went through the security line and don t want to wait in line to be groped again if you leave). saint martin airport car rental You ll get zero for the bump with free headaches thrown in.
When you put in that bid, they don t tell you what your options are should they bump you for it. They d almost certainly rebook you automatically on the next available flight to your destination regardless of how inconvenient it might be.
The previous poster was referring to a bidding technique on the Price is Right game show where a contestant, typically the last one to bid will place a bid of either saint martin airport car rental $1 over or under the highest or lowest bidder.
If passengers don t participate, it will massively increase the costs for Delta. They d have to go through saint martin airport car rental the federally-mandated process saint martin airport car rental of involuntary bumping, saint martin airport car rental which is very expensive for the airline.
I suspect you will see a lot of folks entering the price of their tickets as their bump value leading to more complaints that they were bumped because they had lower fares. I remember I was making a mileage run when one of those hurricanes hit Houston and nailed Continental s operations. I ended up with a $500 voucher even though I was on a $180 ticket. Plus, it made my turnaround perfectly timed (50m). A sweet deal like that would likely never happen under the Delta system, as I wouldn t have thought the bump worth more than a few hundred let alone $500.
So if I put in, say, $10k, then am I less likely to get bumped than the guy who puts in fifty bucks? Wouldn t that spur passengers to put in higher and higher amounts to try to keep from getting bumped, potentially increasing the amount Delta pays out in vouchers?
Well chances are you just wouldn t get bumped, it s hard to get everyone on the plane to agree to $10k, some will always accept just slightly over the cost of their ticket. saint martin airport car rental However if it did come to it they still don t have to do that, they can do the federally mandated involuntary bump, it s more expensive then just getting you to take some reasonable bid, but it isn t $10k expensive.
In acutality, putting in a value of $10k might make you MORE likely to get involuntarily bumped. If there are no volunteers, the airline might use your 10k reques that as reasoining that you are capable of accomodating a later flight, and choose you. Then, they wouldn t give you 10k, but the maximum they are required to by law.
I agree. Fortunately for us, there are millions of people in the US willing to work for less than minimum wage, work in unsafe conditions and would happily allow their 8 year old child work in the fields. Unfortunately, the liberals instituted a minimum wage law, child labor laws and a safe working environment thereby depriving those who would work for $3/hour saint martin airport car rental in a cesspool (with no protection) from the free market!
There are some places where a completely free market works, and some that need a little nudge. Deciding how much my time is worth to sit in an airport saint martin airport car rental for a few extra hours seems like it would be one case. Since I am VOLUNTARILY naming my price, I can decide if it is worth more or less that what the FAA sets for INVOLUNTARY bumps.
Sounds like the free market didn t work for you there. You could have had the LL agree to provide you with ADA compliant bathrooms as part of your private conrtact. $10,000 to install one ADA compliant bathroom is too much, the free market beat you down on that one. (and I m speaking as a retail union GC). Viva la Free Market (if we had one).
Are you also against regulations relating to the minimum conditions saint martin airport car rental that must exist before an airline becomes responsible saint martin airport car rental for your lodging (due to delays), lost baggage saint martin airport car rental and bumping you with NO compensation? Why should they be made to compensate you at all?!
Makes sense to me. If I am flying down to Florida on an early bird flight to make a 9:30 meeting for a $200,000 project, it would have to be a VERY large sum to get me to voluntarily get bumped. saint martin airport car rental The limited FAA reimbursement does not even come close.
However, if I am just going down for a long weekend and can pay for a really nice dinner and a Grade A golf round instead of playing at a dog track and dinner saint martin airport car rental at Five Guys AND sit around the airport drinking for a couple of hours, a bid of $150-200 makes a lot of sense.
I actually saint martin airport car rental don t see a problem with this, It sounds good to me. I ll put in my $20K (for a personal trip) and probably $7K for a business trip (assuming the money doesn t go back to my workplace) as my honest answers and most likely never get bumped again. Sounds like it will be fewer bumps for me and less waiting saint martin airport car rental around until they find some people saint martin airport car rental to volunteer.
You re forgetting that the amount they ll pay is capped by the FAA regulations regarding non-voluntary bumps; if no one will get bumped voluntarily for less than $7,000, they ll choose someone as a non-voluntary sacrifice and pay them the $500 or whatever.
So, that s great?!? Delta would still have to bump people, but involuntarily and pay much more and in the current system? I really can t see what wrong with this setup- isn t your main preference to actually get on the plane?
Except as I suggested above, putting in a value might target you for the involuntary bump at the cap. By saying saint martin airport car rental you are willing to be bumped for a price, you might be the first picked for an involuntary under the assumption that you can accomodate saint martin airport car rental a later flight.
Voluntary bumps (like this one) are almost always paid in travel vouchers because it s cheaper for the airline that way. Involuntary bumps, which happen when the flight is oversold and not enough people take the voluntary bumps, are supposed to be paid in cash (check) by the airline. I believe the amounts are mandated by the FAA.
I wonder if they still consider other factors, such as how easy it is to get the bumpee to their final destination, or if they ll need to supply a hotel voucher too. Say I m flying from Richmond to Louisville, and John Doe is flying from Richmond to Chicago. The flight we re both on has a connection in Cleveland, but I can only get to Lousiville via that connection, while John can get to Chicago on any number of other flights, maybe even a direct flight that leaves in an hour. If I bid $200, and John bids $250, the airline might still come out ahead if they bump John.
There s not a lot of info at the original article, but I m willing to bet that when you check in, the kiosk tells you that your flight may be oversold and asks if you d be willing to volunteer. Continental does it like this at the kiosks, but doesn t get into the bidding. With Delta, if you choose to volunteer, they take your bid and let you know at the gate. Your bid is only an offer, so if everyone puts in $10K as their offer, Delta won t accept any of them. This constitutes a refusal of current offers. Then they ll offer voluntary bumps at the gate starting at the lowest figure they think they can sell. They continue upping the price until they have the correct number of volunteers or they get near (or slightly over) the amount an involuntary bump would cost. Then they go by whatever criteria they have in place for choosing who to involuntarily bump.
When is the next available flight? I ve seen cases where they re looking for volunteers and the next open seat isn t until the following afternoon. In that case, I d need to bid a lot higher. I don t imagine the kiosk displays that information. If I bid a relatively low amount saint martin airport car rental and later find out I won t be able to leave until the following day with an unexpected connection in North Upchuck, will I be held to my bid?
that is NOT how the free market economy works. that method, while being expected honorable, is not how a corporation increases the value to their shareholders .profit at any moral and ethical cost is the name of the game now.
Back in 1996, I volunteered to be bumped saint martin airport car rental from a flight (I don t remember the airline), and for my efforts I got a bottle of wine, a round-trip travel voucher, and a bump up to first class on my new flight. Ah, the good old days.
How is this more efficient? When you get bumped, they have to do more than just issue you a voucher and rebook your one flight. If your flight is to a hub like Atlanta, saint martin airport car rental they ll have to not o