I recently remembered that I had about $300 cash credit from an unused ticket from the previous year and recently I found out that it was going to expire on Nov 29th if I didn’t fly. Not wanting to loose 300 bucks, I figured I might as well fly to NYC for a day, eat well, and fly home. Therefore, I booked a redeye flight from SFO to NYC for today (29th) and the only available seat back was for the following afternoon. At checkin I asked how full the flight was and to see if I could get a row to myself, but was told that the flight was overbooked due to an earlier flight being canceled and the airplane to be used was swapped to a smaller one. I immediately put myself on the “volunteer” list. I figured I’d get a $250 or $300 dollar voucher and a rebooked flight, but much to my surprise the OPENING offer was simply a $1000 credit on the airline, a hotel room, and a choice of flights.Oh my supruse! I got a $1000 voucher and a prime rebooked seat from SFO to NYC on Friday and a Sunday Redeye return. I declined the hotel room, but was happy to accept the taxi voucher., Hopefully the return flight will be overbooked also so I can get a few hundred/thousand more in credit. If this keeps up, I hope I don’t have to pay for flights anymore! I almost feel bad for the airline….there were thirty some odd volunteers who needed to be taken off the flight. So hey probably spent almost $40k in compensation and hotels.Something I learned as former frequent traveler, some airlines give all voluntary denied passengers the same incentive. So therefore if you accept $200, but to get the plane off the ground they offer other passengers $300. You can get the extra $100 simply by sticking around and asking. Not all airlines do this, but many do. It might pay to stick around until the plane is off the ground when in this situation.Now all I have to figure out is where to crash in NYC.