Delta auctions $1,200 worth of vouchers to people who will be turned away from the flight

• A video of a passenger listening to a Delta Jet agent auction off travel vouchers in exchange for seats has gone viral.
• The gate agent can be heard offering travel vouchers of up to $1,200 per video.
• A Delta spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Dot that travel vouchers are offered when flights are packed.

A video showing a man listening to a Delta Airlines gate agent auction off cash coupons to turn passengers off a flight has gone viral, and people online say it’s a good deal.

The video, which was posted on TikTok by a user named Simone Aldredge, reads: It shows a man the user claims is her husband at JFK waiting to board a plane. The video was posted on July 10 and has recently gone viral again, with over three million views at the time of writing.

In the background, the gate agent can be heard making announcements inviting people to take coupons in exchange for their seats on the flight.

The agent can be heard saying in the video: “Please see me on stage, this time I’m going to offer $700, ladies and gentlemen.” But “there was no one to accept,” Aldredge wrote in the video, “so the agent kept raising the offer.”

The agent then raised the price to $1,100 for passengers to volunteer to be removed from the flight, adding that he was looking especially for passengers who were bound for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to accept the offer. Later he raised the bid to $1,200.

“You’ll get your compensation in the form of a gift card—American Express, Mastercard, Visa, Amazon, Best Buy, and Airbnb, just to name a few. It’s your choice,” the agent said. According to the video, the agent’s first name is Karl.

Drake Castaneda, a Delta spokesperson, confirmed to The Daily Dot that the airline offers travel vouchers in exchange for passenger seats if they are overbooked.

Airlines often oversell their flights, so they make money on every seatEven when some passengers don’t show up for their flight. It is a way for airlines to avoid empty seats, resulting in potential revenue loss.

Online users said they would accept the offer in no time, and that the money offered was worth the missed flight.

“Husband and I pocketed 1400 for an hour delay to ATL. Best investment ever,” one user wrote, referring to a flight to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Another user commented: “We got $1,200 plus hotel, dinner and airport vouchers for one time. Worth it if you can do it!”

A few users were skeptical, with some saying that these offers in exchange for a flight never happen where they live.

“Why do US airlines always seem to oversell the flight? I don’t think this happens in Australia at all,” the user wrote, referring to flights in Australia.

Delta and Aldridge did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside normal business hours.