A Washington D.C woman received a pleasant surprise after being booted from a recent United Airlines flight: a $10,000 travel voucher.
After the flight she was already booked on was canceled, Allison Preise purchased the last open seat on a flight from Dulles airport to Austin for a bachelorette weekend with friends. As it turns out the flight was overbooked, and United asked for volunteers to take a later flight.
When no one volunteered, United’s staff removed the customer who had paid the least amount of money for his or her ticket. That person just happened to be Preise, the Washington Post reports.
Unlike the story that made headlines last year when a doctor was dragged from a flight after already taking his seat, Preise was removed from the boarding line before she made it onto the plane.
United first offered her a $2,000 voucher and asked her to sign a form saying she volunteered her seat.
When she declined, she was given a pamphlet explaining what she was entitled to under airline regulations and federal law. Preiss was entitled to cash in the amount of four times what she paid for the ticket, around $650 total.
Preiss asked for cash, and the airline offered her a larger voucher, and then another, eventually landing at a $10,000 travel voucher for future travel, along with two $10 vouchers for the airport food court where she promised to “go INSANE at Pizza Hut.”
