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Prebooked and confirmed 5 flights in South America, 4 of which were with LAN. First leg from Buenos Aires to Lima on 2nd of April. Got to airport at 0605 hrs for 0840 flight. Waited in line till 0735 hrs. They had also split the line so that people behind me actually got processed before me. Got to desk: 'there are no seats left sir'. That is pretty much the repeated response to all my protestations. Had my wife and daughter with me. Than their management of the issue was also accompanied by a series of problems. But the best one, was an email I received 2 days later from my agent, while we were in the Amazon, wondering where we were, and that they were concerned as LAN had contacted them, telling them that we were a No Show, and they were planning to cancel the rest of the trip.
Call me naive, but I thought that overbooking was largely a US practice and that they managed it well so 'Forced Denied Boarding' (am better educated now, as have done a lot of research) does not occur. Why do we allow this industry to do what none of us can get away with in any other industry- denying a service already paid for, for pure financial gain!