United Airlines gives woman $10,000 after taking her off overbooked flight
The woman was upset that she was booted from the flight, but was pleasantly surprised with the consolation prize
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A woman has received a $10,000 travel voucher from United Airlines after she was bumped from her flight.
United reportedly had an issue with one of the seats on a fully booked plane leaving from Washington and headed to Austin. They decided that Allison Preiss, a communications director in the US capital who was headed to Texas for a bachelorette party, was the one after nobody volunteered to be booted from the flight and they chose the lowest paying fare to bump.
In a series of tweets, the experience is documented on Ms Preiss’ Twitter feed as she shifts from outrage that United was forcing a traveller off a flight, to still-inconvenienced surprised delight.
“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 wrote on Twitter at 8.19am while waiting for her flight.
Several tweets later, United had apparently found a bad aide for their mistake.
“They really do not want to give me cash. They just offered me $10,000 in travel credit. TEN THOUSAND,” Ms Preiss said.
United Airlines later confirmed that the tweets were real to Sky Blog, saying that the voucher was issued per their voucher policies.
United raised the cap on their vouchers to $10,000 last April after a public relations disaster when a video surfaced showing United employees dragging passenger David Dao off of a flight, bloodied up.
After the incident with Mr Dao, United conducted a review and published a 10-point plan, which included raising the voucher limits to $10,000.
United has had other bad publicity lately as well, including the recent death of a pet dog when flight attendants forced a family to put the pup in an overhead bin.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments