I was waiting for a flight to Peoria in Chicago - at the gate - the previous flight to Peoria was delayed and also overbooked, which is the norm on internal flights. The ensuing auction was quite entertaining and the young AA employees at the gate had a lot of freedom to spend money. As it was 9pm they weren't having much luck getting 6 people off and the offer just climbed until eventually they got 4 young blokes travelling together, who accepted a steak meal downtown, 400 dollars each and a hire car. The other two were a couple bumped back onto my flight at 800 dollars each....they sat next to me on the flight and told me that was their holiday for next year taken care of!
Ironically, due to the aircraft congestion at the gate, our flight took off first, so these folk got paid handsomely for arriving earlier.
This sort of shambles of routine overbooking must pay in the long run because of the igh load factor.