all week, i had been worried that my flight to kona would be delayed or even cancelled, especially since 2 other airlines (aloha and ata had declared bankruptcy) and many of the american airlines md-80 flights had been cancelled for inspection. it was not cancelled (my flight was not an md-80) but of course it was delayed. my flight was scheduled to depart lax at 5:30 pm and didn't depart until 6:40 pm. i had arrived at 3:30 pm hoping to change my seat for an exit row with more leg room. as i checked in, i was told that no exit seats were available and that my seat was changed form row 16 to row 24 due to a change to a smaller plane (original plane had166 seats and was changed to a seat with only 129 seats). the flight was soldout. i then arrived at my assigned gate within plenty of time left before boarding and decided to walk to the bookstore. i got back to my gate at approximately 5 pm and noticed a very long line which i originally thought was for people to board the plane. it was actually a line due to an announcement of the smaller plane change, so the people who thought they had an assigned seat had to stand in line to change their seat to a guaranteed seat on the smaller plane. i got lucky since i knew ahead of time this information when i arrived at lax before any of the other patrons who were already waiting at the gate. apparently, they overbooked and asked for any volunteers to give up their seat for a $700 voucher (no blackout dates including flights outside of the U.S., plus hotel accomodations, dinner and breakfast and a guaranteed seat on the next day's flight to kona) which i seriously considered but decided not to. by the time i heard the announcement, i had already boarded the plane to which i found out i was seated next to a woman and a baby. somewhat annoying but the baby ended up sleeping 3 hours into the flight thankfully. i had already got my flight free using my aa miles (reduced from 35000 miles to only 27500 miles using my aa platinum card) and the $700 voucher would have been an added bonus. i almost regret not taking the aa deal but now that i've arrived in hawaii, i'm glad i didn't. it is absolutely beautiful.
