Last Thursday Allison Preiss, a United Airlines passenger, got bumped from her flight when she lost her seat on a full morning flight from Washington Dulles to Austin.
The issue, as it turned out, is that a broken seat on the plane apparently had to be taken out of service. That meant United now had one less seat to offer on the fully-booked flight.
Once it looked like she was about to be that passenger, Preiss – a communications director from Washington – took to Twitter with a long list of complaints.
"United is offering $1K in travel credit for an oversold flight. If nobody bites, they will kick off the lowest fare passenger by pulling them out of the boarding line. For a flight that THEY oversold. Unreal,” she said in an 8:19 a.m. ET tweet on Thursday that kicked off a Tweetstorm about the incident.
.@united offering $1K in travel credit for an oversold flight. If nobody bites, they will kick off the lowest fare passenger by pulling them out of the boarding line. For a flight that THEY oversold. Unreal.
"I AM THE LOWEST FARE PASSENGER.""They are kicking me off this flight.""They can’t board me on this plane because there is a broken seat."“.@united IS THE WORST.”
Preiss didn’t want to miss the flight out of concern she would miss her friend's bachelorette weekend in Texas.
When there were no volunteers to be bumped, United singled her out because she paid the lowest fare.
United agents offered her a $2,000 voucher, but she pressed for cash instead. The gate agent agreed and was about to issue a check for $650 when another agent offered a $10,000 travel voucher and a spot on the next plane.
Preiss accepted, tweeting a photo of the voucher while saying “this is how badly United didn’t want to give me cash.”
.@united tried to get me to sign a document that says I volunteered my seat on this plane when I was involuntarily denied boarding. Sketchy af.
They really do not want to give me cash. They just offered me $10,000 in travel credit. TEN THOUSAND.
As you might expect, Preiss ultimately concluded that the episode turned out OK for her.
"Well, I can say it was the best flight delay ever,” she said.
United raised its cap last April for what its employees could offer fliers on oversold flights to $10,000 per passenger. That, of course, came after the global public relations crisis faced by the airline after passenger David Dao was bloodied as he was dragged off United Express Flight 3411 to free up a seat on the full flight.
