A free lunch

I'll never understand airlines' insistence on overbooking. Are they so pessimistic about their own on-time performance that they assume a bunch of passengers will just miss their connections? Even when it's the sole flight of the day for the airline from this airport, and likely most passengers are originating there?

On the flip side, I am *so* not complaining. I'm on my way to Maryland for my cousin's graduation tomorrow and Friday, and when I heard the gate agents start sweetening the pot for volunteers to be bumped, and mentioning they'd rebook on other airlines, I stepped forward. You see, another airline happens to have a direct flight where I was going, so even leaving 3 hours later, I'm getting:

• A direct flight arriving 8 minutes later than the connection would have landed.
• A flight on an airline I actually fly, so tasty miles accrual.
• A flight voucher (though lamely, you've got to actually go buy your ticket at the airport in order to use it - what is this, the 1950s? They can handle electronic ticketing but haven't figured out online voucher codes?)
• Free meal vouchers -- three of them in seemingly random $9, $7, and $5 denominations. I grabbed lunch, and the restaurant employee was trying to find me an extra buck in snack foods to maximize voucher use, since you can't get change from them. Sadly, nothing was that cheap.

Plus it's more uninterrupted time to knock out e-mails. I've finally gone from 260+ down into the 30s, though as soon as I connected to the internet, I was back up to 60. Ack!