A United Airlines passenger flying a regional jet from Chicago O’Hare to Fargo snagged $2,000 in travel credits to take a later flight on Thursday.

Was about to board my connecting flight home out of ORD and they were looking for four volunteers to stay because the flight was over weight. Started at $500 and within a few minutes upped it to $1k. I thought I wonder if they will go to $2k so walked up and asked and got it!

Pretty stoked my wife is coming with me to Tokyo this spring and this will cover her ticket or potential upgrades depending on fares.

United Airlines Terminal, Chicago O’Hare

They can’t actually use the credits to pay for upgrades, though of course they can use the credit to buy a ticket and the money they would have spent on the ticket could be used or an upgrade. Either way, they’re thrilled, it was well worth the wait. United flies the route three times per day.

Flights have too many passengers for a number of reasons.

• Sometimes the airline sells more tickets than seats, and more people show up for the flight than expected.
  
• They may also swap planes for one with fewer seats. The original aircraft goes mechanical, for instance, and they substitute with a smaller aircraft.
  
• Weight restrictions may limit the number of passengers on board. They might need more fuel for the journey than usual because of winds. They may have too much cargo on board. In that case even though there are enough seats for everyone, they can’t accommodate all the passengers. Weight and balance appears to have been the issue here.

Tunnel Connecting United B + C Concourses at Chicago O’Hare

Airlines give out compensation trying to get passengers to voluntarily take another flight. In most cases (although not an aircraft swap) they are required to pay cash compensation to passengers if there aren’t volunteers, and they have to ‘involuntarily’ deny boarding to someone. Here United was looking for volunteers, offering a lot of money to take the next non-stop flight.

Sometimes what to do is a real conundrum – one boyfriend got in trouble for taking $2,000 from Delta to delay visiting her. He should have spent half of it on her to make up for it. Delta pays out actual gift cards and not just their own travel credits like most airlines do. That’s part of their bigger deal with American Express.

United Airlines CRJ, Like Those Flown To Fargo

Shortly after the 2017 David Dao dragging incident on United Delta authorized gate agents to go up to $9,950. Around that time United gave one passenger a $10,000 travel credit for taking a later flight but they eliminated that generosity at the start of the pandemic.

This is how badly United didn’t want to give me cash: pic.twitter.com/sI7vmbeB2Q

— Allison Preiss (@allisonmpreiss) March 22, 2018

Still, $2,000 payouts are possible.