‘Their $12 food voucher in 2024 is ridiculous’: American Airlines traveler has ‘nightmare slumber party’ at airport

An American Airlines traveler posted a vlog on TikTok of her night at the airport after she was kicked off of her flight. And after a series of all-too-familiar flight delays, she wound up spending the night on-site.

Sav (@sav.fs) has reached over 58,000 likes on her viral video. She added an on-screen caption to her video saying, “This has been a day.” Indeed she spent 22 hours at the airport, including trying to sleep on the ground with her hoodie as a pillow for two of them, roaming the building at 3:49am, receiving no room reimbursement, and her flight home was ultimately booked to a nearby city—not her original destination.

To start her video, Sav explains that she was waiting at the Charlotte airport, and decided to make a vlog of her night. She says that, “American Airlines overbooked our flight” and then asked for around 20 to 25 people to volunteer to go on a different flight. 

“20 to 25?” Sav says, “That’s crazy.”

Sav said she would have volunteered to go on a separate flight because travelers were offered a $1,000 travel voucher, but her schoolwork took that option off the table for her. Not that it mattered: Sav says that American Airlines went back on its word and told travelers that “if you're in group 7, 8, or 9, you're not gonna get on the flight.”

“Guess what group I was in?” Sav asks the viewers, “Group 9! So, I didn’t make it on the flight.”

Originally, Sav says her flight from Charlotte was supposed to leave at 2pm and land in Baton Rouge. Now, she says she won’t be flying until around 9pm, and will arrive in New Orleans. 

She says, “I did get the $1,000 travel voucher, so at least I have that. And I got a $12 food voucher, so that’ll buy me like a yogurt puff, I don’t know.” 

Sav stopped recording her video, but began filming again after she says she received another update about her new flight to New Orleans. 

“The flight was supposed to take off at like 9:00pm or so, then it got pushed back to 9:30pm,” she explains, “Now I just got a text message.” Sav says the text message read that her flight would not be taking off until 11pm now.

“I’m actually gonna cry,” she continues. “I’m gonna go buy some sushi.”

After using her $12 food voucher for sushi, Sav says “to top it all off,” the worker walked up to her while she was eating at the sushi bar. She says the worker told her “since you didn't order from the bar and since you got the to go sushi, um, you can't sit here.”

“So I had to go to the food court,” she adds. “I’m grateful though, stay optimistic my friends.”

Sav stopped recording her video to eat her sushi, and then began filming another clip again at 10pm. 

“It's currently 10pm,” she says, “My flight is now delayed until 1:30am, I have a very good feeling it’s gonna be canceled.” 

For her final update, Sav says, “It's currently 12:30 in the morning. My flight stayed at 1:30, but I ended up rebooking to a flight tomorrow morning just cause I didn't wanna have to Uber alone from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.”

Viewers in the comment section agree with Sav saying that her day at the airport sounds like a nightmare. One viewer wrote, “Their $12 food voucher in 2024 is ridiculous.” 

Sav responded, “Like what am I supposed to get? A singular strawberry?”

Another questioned how American Airlines managed to overbook a flight with that many travelers. The comment read, “How do you overbook 20-25 people???!!!!”

@sav.fs This has been a ✨day✨ #travel #airport #nightmare #travelvlog #vlog ♬ original sound - Sav

A user responded, “This is very common. Flights are normally oversold 20-25% of the time. The airlines anticipate that amount of people canceling, changing, and/or no showing their flights.”

A summer of American Airlines horror stories

Travel + Leisure states that although surprising, “light overbooking is extremely common in the U.S. “

“Most airlines sell more tickets for a flight than there are available seats on the aircraft because they anticipate some passengers may cancel their reservations, miss their flights, or change their travel plans at the last minute,” the site continues.

In recent headlines, an American Airlines passenger says that she received an unexpected perk for sitting in the exit row, a free beverage. But from strange seating, to controversial responses to inclement weather, to being labeled "worse than Frontier," to reports of 12-hour delays, to travel experts warning about booking with the airline altogether, to policy loopholes that resulted in no hotel vouchers for stranded travelers, complaints on social media about American have been rampant this travel season. And it isn't even technically summer.

The Daily Dot reached out to request a comment from Sav and American Airlines via email. 

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