Delta Offers ‘Highest’ Compensation Woman Has Heard of for Overbooked Plane

A Delta flight set to bring passengers from the United States to Jamaica faced a conundrum when staff realized it had been overbooked, and they spent thousands of dollars setting it right.
Simone Aldredge was preparing for a trip of a lifetime with three friends to Montego Bay, Jamaica, but right before the plane began boarding, staff announced it had been overbooked by three people.
They then began offering cash and hotel stays to any passengers who volunteered to take a flight the next morning instead—and Simone told Newsweek she was “absolutely tempted” when the cash offers became higher than she’d ever seen before.
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In a video to her TikTok account @simonealdredge on August 11, she recorded the moment staff announced they were looking for three volunteers, starting at a gift card offer of $1,000, then going up to $1,200, $1,400, and eventually, $1,800.
Newsweek has reached out to Delta for comment. This story will be updated should they respond.
At each announcement, murmurs of excitement and applause could be heard from the passengers as everyone with flexible travel plans debated taking up the money, including Simone herself.
She said in the video, as someone took the offer at $1,200, another at $1,400 and the final one at $1,800, “That is the highest I’ve ever seen it go.”
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“I was in a group of 4, so I wasn’t considering taking a later flight at first, since Delta was only looking for 3 volunteers,” she explained to Newsweek.
“But once they said $1,600 and then $1,800 I was so interested! That was more than what we each paid for an entire week at our all-inclusive resort in Jamaica.”
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But as she looked at her friends wondering what they should do, “someone else at the gate volunteered and snagged it quickly”.
According to Delta’s website, if a flight is overbooked, airlines will make every effort to not deny someone a seat, by first asking for volunteers willing to give up their reservation in exchange for a payment of the airline’s choosing.
However, if there are not enough volunteers, an airline may deny boarding to passengers “in accordance with its particular boarding priority”. Those denied boarding will usually be entitled to compensation.
In this case, Delta got their three volunteers, those volunteers got a hotel stay and a large amount of money, and the other passengers got to watch the unusual experience.
TikTok users were in awe at the sheer amount of money being offered to passengers, and Simone’s video exploded in popularity, racking up 443,000 likes in just five days.
One shocked commenter wrote: “How is nobody getting up?” while one joked: “The person who took $1200 looking at $1600.”
And one admitted they would “do it on my way home but not on my way to the trip because then I’ll miss a night at my vacation destination.”
Simone, from Pennsylvania, “didn’t think” her video would grow to be as viral as it did, but has been “loving” the interactions, calling the comment section “the best part”.
“I’ve been loving chatting with people in the comments and hearing about others’ similar stories.”
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